


Within a Forest Dark

by elleinmotion



Series: Canticles [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: A combination of both the Witcher Ciri and Empress-in-waiting Ciri endings, Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Empress Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, F/M, Fantasy, Geralt/Yenn in the background, Romance, Slavic Folklore, Witcher Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, lore is game-centric but book lore is also involved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:59:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22135183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elleinmotion/pseuds/elleinmotion
Summary: After her victory against the White Frost, Ciri returns to Velen to tie up loose ends: slaying the last Crone, saving a friend, and answering an emperor.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon/Morvran Voorhis
Series: Canticles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593241
Comments: 59
Kudos: 151





	1. A Rider from Blackbough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Midway upon the journey of our life  
> I found myself within a forest dark,  
> For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
> 
> Ah me! How hard a thing it is to say  
> What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,  
> Which in the very thought renews the fear.
> 
> So bitter is it, death is little more;  
> But of the good to treat, which there I found,  
> Speak will I of the other things I saw there.”
> 
> _—Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy; Inferno, Canto I, lines 1 thru 9_  
> 

The sight that greeted the rider at a fork in the road, just outside the village of Blackbough, was interesting enough to make her stop. She was eastbound on a black mare, the sun beating down on her back from the west as it slunk lower along the horizon. 

A gathering of peasants stood facing a man teetering upon an embankment. He wore a cap with a pheasant feather stuck at a jaunty angle, and the fabric of his tunic was edged with knotwork. A chain of office hung around his neck. 

_Probably the alderman_ , she thought. 

Tucked against the curve of the earthen wall, a small shrine faced the road, the warping wood of its roof stained black with age. Beneath the eaves of the shrine hunched the carven likeness of a crook-backed, gnarl-toothed crone. A patch of moss had grown above a corner of the deity’s mouth like a beauty mark. Ciri recognized the statue’s face; it was familiar, after a fashion. If she squinted, Mother Nenneke's knowing gaze stared back at her from the carved features.

Reins twitching towards her thighs, she brought her mare to an abrupt halt near the fringe of the crowd. Water sloshed under the horse’s hooves, churning up loose chunks of earth as Ciri guided her mount alongside the gathering. Not many peasants paid them heed—a few heads turned around in curiosity, only to turn back to the alderman’s sermon once they glanced upon the hooded stranger on horseback. 

“HEAR ME NOW!” boomed the alderman, arms spread high to the sky as he cried out. “True be, the war’s come to a close, and with it many a young man’s found his grave. Here and now we humbly beseech ye, Melitele, mother o’er all, t’bless our hearths and homes with young lads and lasses this comin’ spring!”

Buzzing noises of agreement passed through the crowd—a gathering of women and old or infirm men. Ciri kept her distance, watching as the alderman climbed down from the embankment to exchange greetings and shake hands. He made his way towards her as he wove through the gathering. Torn by indecision, she sank her heels deeper behind her stirrups, balancing her weight on the balls of her feet. She couldn’t decide whether to spur her mare on to avoid exchanging words with the man, or to linger. The whole point of setting out today had been with the intention of keeping her head low and her pace steady, to stop not for anything. 

Stopping would mean questions and she wasn’t in the mood to explain herself to anyone, nor was she inclined to talk at all. A sour mood hung over her, a disquiet that had been there since she’d gotten back to this world. It’d been an adjustment to see and speak to living faces after weeks of fighting in the frozen wastes, the ice constantly biting into her exposed skin until it bled. The battle with the White Frost had been the Frying Pan all over again, but instead of brutal desert heat, Ciri was met with the living force of frost stretching into leagues of blinding whiteness. 

She was worn, she was tired. Most of all she was not ready for prying eyes and fumbling questions about who she was, where she was going, or what she was doing. Not today. Before she could come to a decision about moving on or lingering, the alderman was blocking her path with his body and an entreating expression. 

“Will ye give an offering, miss?” he asked, clasping a hand over his heart.

Ciri hesitated before she reached into the traveling pouch belted at her side and scraped out a few gold crowns. It wasn’t enough to make any onlookers take note, or bring gossip back to the village about a wealthy traveller heading east, but it would be enough to satisfy the alderman. 

“Melitele bless ye, ma’am.” With a tip of his cap, the alderman cupped his hands to receive the pour of coins as she opened her fist. After they trickled into his ruddy palms, he turned to shuffle back through the crowd and drop them into the wooden bowl between the crone’s claw-like feet. Others queued to offer their equivalent: an assemblage of underfed chickens, heels of bread, and small flagons of crude wine as tribute to Melitele.

Ciri was down the road and moving at a brisk trot before the alderman had a chance to turn and thank her again. 

Once she’d put another league between herself and the outskirts of Blackbough, she guided her horse away from the road to a copse of trees, tugging back the hood of her oilskin capelet to let the fresh air hit her. The heavy material had kept the rain off her shoulders and head earlier in the day when she’d first arrived in Velen, shielding her face from prying eyes. But it was bloody _hot_ beneath it, creating a foggy heat at the back of her neck that plastered her ashy hair to her skin with sweat. The pale skin of her face was still spotted with hard, waxy patches of frostbite, but the liniment Geralt had given her was working to heal the ugly red spots. Her face had been much worse for wear when she’d first arrived home a month ago, before Yennefer could worry over her with spells and ointments. Ciri was lucky to still possess a nose and all her toes and fingers after the degrees of frostbite she endured. 

Around her, the season’s changing was marked by small things. The edges of the leaves on the hardwoods were burgeoning from a deep green to the tinged yellow of their autumn coloring. Sunlight reached through the wilted canopy, lacking the strength of its summer zenith, and there was the constant rustling of small animals foraging in the underbrush. 

Despite the pastoral beauty, Velen had a way of making itself known to a person through its inconveniences: the swamps, the impassible roads, the heat, the fevers, the bandits, the monsters. Even the alleged cannibals tucked in the far southwestern parts of the region were well-known throughout the area. The province was not a place a person would willingly return to had they visited it once before, and Ciri had tortuously weighed the pros and cons of coming back to this hellhole. The pros had won out once she’d realized that as soon as her loose ends were tied, it was unlikely she’d ever have to return. These next few days would be her try at a fresh start, one where she could lay the past to rest. 

“And here we are,” she said to her mare, fanning the back of her neck. The horse’s ears flicked towards her. Ciri grimaced as she pulled the oilcloth hood back over her head, touching her heels to the mare’s sides to bring them out of the shaded copse of trees and onto the road. They resumed their journey eastward, the path emerging from a forest of young birches and yews into the sparse fields that stretched towards Crow’s Perch—her destination. 

New grass was just beginning to crop over the scorched patches of earth where the pyres of Nordlings and Nilfgaardians once blazed. The lands south of the Pontar were filled with squalor, an ever-present tinge of desperation visible on the faces of the peasants that she passed along the way. It had been months since the pitched combat in Velen had ground to a halt by way of the commanding powers signing on a dotted line. The kingdom of Temeria, the land she presently beat a path across, was granted sovereignty as a vassal state under the empire that had brought it to its knees. The Nordling principalities like Redania were not so lucky: uniformly absorbed and indoctrinated into an ever expanding bureaucracy. They would have no courts of their own, nor anything resembling a government to call theirs. Prosperity would inevitably emerge under the guiding hand of the imperial hegemony, but at the cost of these nations’ identities. They would become _Nilfgaardian_ , while Temaria, in her good fortune, would remain Temeria. Conditionally.

Peace at a price, Ciri thought of it.

A group of farmers ignored her passing. Backs bent to the furrows of dirt, they scratched at the freshly turned soil with picks and drags to ready the beds for winter planting. Further off, more laborers thrashed the long stalks of ripened wheat into bundles, marching slowly up the scraggly rows. A bloody spring and summer led to fewer hands planting, which made for a leaner harvest. These were simple folk, who in their short existence rarely travelled a couple of leagues away from their villages. Further up the road, Ciri came upon packs of wild dogs—left there to die by uncaring kennel masters of both Nilfgaardian and Temarian forces. They were abandoned tools of war, not unlike the outline of abandoned trebuchets she spotted on the horizon. The dogs were fighting over the bleached remains of a jigsaw skeleton. A femur here, the turn of the skull halfway buried beneath the loamy ground and stained with dappled moss over there; not much else besides a cracked rib or fibia poking up out of the soil. 

Ciri watched with a fleeting, morbid interest as one cur fought another, their burly shoulders bunching under the strain of pulling with all their might in opposite directions. Force won out with the _crrckkk_ of a knobby stretch of bone breaking in half, the length splintering until the halves pulled clean from each other. The dogs sprinted off in opposite directions to gnaw out the marrow in solitude. 

Crow’s Perch was a smudge on the skyline in front of her, a slight bump rising out of the land. The sun behind her had dipped below the horizon, painting the autumn air with streaks of bloody red and yellow. Ciri had spared her mare most of the day, but with the failing light came the threat of getting caught on the road in the dark. She fixed her grip on the reins to hold them shorter, squeezing her heels against her mare’s sides. A sedate walk evolved into a full-bodied lope, the horse’s long legs eating up the road in strides. Ciri balanced herself in the seat of the saddle, curled over the animal’s stretched neck as she let the rush of the air flatten her hood low over her head. 

Half an hour of the relentless pace left her horse winded, lather building on the mare’s withers. Before they arrived, Ciri slowed her to a trot outside the palisades of Crow’s Perch. The place had changed little since her stay at the manor house at the very top of the town’s hill. There were a few guards around the mouth of the high bridge leading across the moat to the entryway, but they paid little mind to a single rider coming into town just after dusk. Instead, militiamen continued their dice game, squatting in the dirt and cursing each others’ mothers in jovial tones when one lost a toss.

Ciri paused before the bridge, the torchlights near the gate illuminating a portion of the palisades. As she recalled, there hadn’t been a single body hanging against the high wooden fences surrounding the town when she was last in Velen. Now she counted at least ten bloated corpses, dangling like one-stringed marionettes against the rough-hewn wood. 

_Horse thief, usurer, pig fucker_. The nature of the offenses were scrawled on crude wooden placards hanging around their necks. Ciri was surprised that one of the Baron’s men was literate enough to write the crimes of the hanged. 

“Cheerful,” she said under her breath, her calves closing into her mare’s sides to remind her to _go_. The horse began to pick her way over the planks, head down, after a few cajoling words and the constant pressure of her legs pressing in on her sides. Ciri didn’t blame the mare for balking. The bridge over the moat was just like she remembered it—a long stretch of wooden flotsam halfway rotted on top, with only intermittent stretches of railing strewn along the length of it. It was more a footpath over open water than a bridge.

The sun had long since slipped below the horizon. An early moonrise cast long shadows over the ground, creating a maze of darkness between the thatched roofs and low wooden huts that lined the dirt-packed road running from the bridge all the way up to the manor. Ciri didn’t meet any real challenges from the guards until she got to the gatehouse at the top of the hill, the entrance flung wide open but manned by militiamen. 

These soldiers were more attentive than the ones guarding the bridge. They raised their torches towards her, blinding her with a sudden burst of light. Well-armed and well-armored, the air clinked with the sound of mail scraping against plate. Ciri dismounted, her legs protesting with the sudden stretch after a full day in the saddle. She walked it off by striding forward to meet them, looping the reins over her mare’s head to gather them in one loose-fisted hand. 

“Who plowin’ goes there?” shouted one of the men. She couldn’t make out their faces. Ciri tugged the hood of her capelet off and let it fall against her shoulders. The torchlight shone on her hair, the ashen color burning copper in its glow. One of the men whistled in recognition. 

“Lebioda’s thumb, s’that Ciri under there?” the whistler crowed with delight, lifting his torch high to cast a circle of light over the three of them and the horse. Ciri’s mare tossed her head, nostrils and eyes flaring wide at the sight of the fire. Ciri relaxed her grip on the reins and let the horse step back a few wary paces behind her. 

“None other than,” she answered, drawing almost even with the soldiers. She still couldn’t make out their features, but the one closest to her seemed familiar with his broad-shouldered outline and distinct limp. 

She was certain of who he was when he spoke again. 

“What business brings y’back to this pisshole?” he asked, a touch of wariness threading his words.

“I’ve come to see the Sergeant. Gretka too, if you still have her tucked away.” Ciri pulled a strand of hair out of her face, brushing it behind her ear. 

“If you want the Sergeant, you’ve got ‘em,” the broad-shouldered figure acknowledged.

“Sergeant Ardal,” she greeted, dipping her head. He mirrored her motions and waved her on through the gate. A stable boy came to snatch the reins of her horse as she unbuckled her saddlebags. He led the mare away as the three of them clanked across the smithy yard with its banked forges and squat outbuildings. Ciri maneuvered her bags over her arm, knocking against the hilt of the sword sticking over her shoulder. The Sergeant’s man wandered off towards the stables with the lad and her horse once they stepped into the main yard. 

Ciri and the Sergeant made for the ramshackle red-bricked manor. Silence stretched between them, comfortable and borne of the decent acquaintanceship they had established months ago. 

“S’great to be seeing you again, missy.” Ardal broke the quiet as they started up the stairs to the manor’s door. “Imagined we wouldn’t ever see you again, especially in these parts, what with the Baron up and leavin’.” He sounded distinctly peeved about that last part, hiking one foot up the stairs, then the other. 

“Necessity drove me back here. Believe me, I’d rather be a million other places than Velen.” There was a touch of irony in her words—irony that was surely lost on him. _A million other places. Yet here I am._

“Then what brings y’back?” he asked after they stepped onto the well-worn planks of the entrance hallway. The tapers burning in their wall sconces reeked of animal fat, filling the dim hallway with its dark floors and plaster-covered walls. 

“Lost something in the bog.” Ciri twisted her fingertips inward to touch them to her palm. Thick gloves saved her the familiar bite of nails in the skin when she made a fist.

“ _Which_ bog y’speakin’ about?”

“I’ll tell the lot of you about it over a nice fire when I’m back,” she assured him. “Like the old days.”

_When I come out of it in relatively one piece, hopefully._

Ardal hocked, loud enough to wake the dead, then spat the phlegm out on the floor. “If it’s the bog I’m thinkin’, I’ll light a candle for ye. Heard about the trouble you and that _arse_ of a witcher caused up on Bald Mountain during Belleteyn. T’were I you, I’d give every town south of Lindon a wide berth. Folk down there aren’t too enthused about your killin’ of those bitches they worshipped. Witches, crones, ladies. Whatever th’fuck they were.” 

“The middle one is what most sane folk call them. The Crones.” Unbidden, Ciri remembered the coppery stench of old blood mingled with the earthiness of wet wood. She could feel the water seeping through the leather of her boots and hear the crackling of the fire beneath the cauldron. The frustration welling in her now was just as fresh as it was on Belleteyn, when she’d watched Weavess disperse into a murder of crows with Vesemir’s medallion held tight in their claws. She recalled how the frustration surged into rage as she watched the flock swarm towards the first hints of dawn peeking through the roots of the ancient oak, knowing that there was no time to give chase. 

There had been no time then to chase down mementos and finish off the last of the Crones, but now all she had was time. 

“Heard one of them managed to make it out alive, if you listen to the ravin’ out of the alderman of Downwarren.” Rheumy blue eyes squinted at her in the low light. He hunched a shoulder towards the wall, leaning lopsided with his arms crossed. 

“I heard as much as well,” she agreed politely, dropping her saddlebags on a nearby bench with a heavy _thud._ The old Sergeant stared at her bland expression and sucked on his teeth before he seemed to decide on something right then and there. Shrugging, Ardal turned and started limping off in the opposite direction. He threw a hand behind him, pointing vaguely at the other end of the hall. 

“Gretka’s just down there, in the kitchen. Your old room’s across the way. Stay as long as you’d like, just don’t be bringin’ whatever you’re stirring up in that bog back _here_ , y’hear?” 

“It’s only for the night. And I’ve another day to get where I’m going. I appreciate the lodgings, though,” she said to his turned back. Anxiety tightened somewhere in her chest. Her last stop tomorrow after a brief pass by Crookback Bog was the disbanding Nilfgaardian camp far to the east. There she would have a chance to prepare, gather her wits about her, and rest before setting out to the Crones’ village. 

Her choice of base was ideal for another reason. Staying at the military encampment would allow her to send her father a direct answer through his emissaries. She didn’t feel the need for a face to face meeting to convey her intentions after their last prickly encounter. Since her final homecoming had grown further and further away by the passing of days, sleep became a fitful endeavor. Eating became a chore when everything tasted like ash in her mouth. Geralt knew nothing about the letter in her saddlebags, nor did Yennefer. They’d have said something to her by now if they knew.

Before their party had sailed for Skellige, the emperor’s messenger came for her in Novigrad. She had scanned his letter, crumpled it into a ball, and shoved it as far into her bags as she could manage. Back then it had been easy to shelve Emhyr’s question in the very back of her mind—what was the point of entertaining it at the time? She had been facing insurmountable odds, with death and dismemberment waiting for her if she failed. The far future was the last thing that had been on her mind. 

Yet she had survived both the Wild Hunt and the White Frost, and the future was fast approaching.

“Anything for the girl that takes a sword to a boar hunt and succeeds. A _sword_ , by the gods,” the Sergeant swore to himself, laughing at the ceiling as he limped with his old soldier’s gait into the Baron’s study. 

Ciri smiled after the Sergeant’s retreating form in the dim hall and made her way to the scarred wood of the kitchen door. Her lungs filled up as she took a deep, calming breath and willed the tension away from her face. _Only smiles for Gretka_ , she told herself. When she was alone she would mull over her answer to Emhyr. She pressed a gloved hand to the door and pushed it open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired largely after reading astolat's amazing fic [ Blooded Crown](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9238637), I was dying to take a swing at something Ciri-centric and possibly explore a tangent where Ciri takes up Geralt's quest in the horrible, no good, very sad, very ['bad ending'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vU9K6LvEj8) of W3.
> 
> Follow my tumblr, [elleinmotion](https://elleinmotion.tumblr.com/), for more Witcher-centric content!


	2. Gretka

Instantly, a battery of odors hit her. Rosemary, offal, yeasty dough, damp straw—all of it blanketed by the tang of woodsmoke. A cloud of it hung around the blackened kitchen rafters, coagulating and swirling like ripples in a tidal pool. The fire to her right was banked, coals smoldering under the belly of a great iron pot. 

Several braces of fresh rabbits, skinned and pink, hung from a wooden rack on her left. Ciri squinted and walked further into the small room’s interior. It was dark despite the faint glow of the banked fire.

“Kitchen’s closed, didn’t ye hear Cook?!” piped a small voice from the wall of slatted wood dividing part of the kitchen. Ciri spotted a pair of small, bright eyes peering through the gaps in the shelves built along the rickety wall. A small head ducked out from behind the corner. Gretka blinked owlishly, clutching a large wooden spoon to her chest like a dagger. Her braid flopped over a shoulder as she quirked her head, confusion pinching her little face, and then her eyes opened wide with recognition. 

“Hullo, you.” Ciri brought her hand up, wriggling it in a wave. It hurt to smile and stretch the raw patches of healing skin on her cheeks, but it was well worth it when Gretka matched her tooth for tooth with her grin.

“Ciri!” she squealed, throwing her arms up high as she bolted. Weaving and ducking around laden tables and barrels, the girl impacted against Ciri’s midsection. The spoon she was brandishing earlier hurtled towards the collections of pots and pans hanging from a rack, clanging against them with a raucous din as Gretka tried her damnedest to squeeze the breath out of Ciri with a hug. 

“You’ve shot up like a weed.” Ciri balanced her gloved hands across the girl’s shoulders. Gretka’s beamed up at her. When she had first met her, Gretka had been a little scarecrow of barely eight summers beneath her threadbare clothes. At least now she seemed to be filling out her small frame and had grown a couple of inches. The girl’s pink-dappled cheeks had rounded out more, too.

“Lots better cookin’ here than at home. More to eat,” the girl babbled, tugging Ciri’s arm to lead her over to the only seat in the room. “Sit, sit!” 

At the girl’s insistence, Ciri planted herself on the rough wooden stool standing near the stacks of firewood. She unbuckled the strap that held her scabbard fast to her back, leaning the sword against the wall beside her and making sure it was well within her reach. Gretka was a whirling dervish of activity, darting from the shelves to the cauldron after fetching a plain earthenware bowl. She squinted into it, polished the bottom of the dish with her tatty sleeve, then set about ladling a generous amount of what looked like stew into it. 

“How’ve you been?” Ciri asked, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Alright. Cook’s been lookin’ after me—her and Yoana.” Gretka’s tongue stuck out at the corner of her mouth, her brow furrowed in concentration as she carefully poured the last ladleful of stew into the bowl. She had to stand on her tiptoes to even reach into the cauldron. Her clothes were still the same threadbare sackcloth Ciri recalled her wearing when they first met, the tunic belted at the waist with a length of fraying rope. 

Ciri was hit with the aroma of spices once the girl brought over the bowl—nutmeg, rosemary, and a faint trace of paprika. Her mouth watered as Gretka handed her a spoon and a thick heel of bread. Ciri balanced the bowl and bread on her thighs in lieu of an actual table. The kitchen’s countertops and trestle tables were overly stacked with crockery and foodstuffs, fit to cave in under the weight of it all.

 _The Sergeant’s been busy provisioning for the winter, it seems._

The thought sent a curdle of unease straight to her gut. _Where’s he getting it all from?_

Ciri dragged her train of thought off the topic by focusing on Gretka’s words. “Yoana who works out in the smithy yard?” Ciri remembered her from her last stay at Crow’s Perch. She recalled Yoana as a brawny woman with straw colored hair, always tending to the forge and doing menial work like stitching leather and clipping rings of metal from tight coils to make chainmail. Meanwhile, the dwarf mastercrafter overseeing her work did little in comparison—at least, that’s what Ciri observed when she would pass by their forge during her prior stay. 

“That’s her! Works out in the smithy yard with Fergus, but now Fergus is _her_ assistant.” Gretka found a seat on top of a stack of grain bags, her thin legs kicking at the air as she scrambled up. 

Ciri _ah’d_ , a smile stretching her face. She stirred absently at the stew in her lap. “Geralt told me as much. He’s sworn off of other armor makers and said Yoana’s the only crafter to see. I’ve half a mind to talk to her and see about getting properly fitted for a set like he’s got.”

The liquid in the bowl was thick and brown with generous hunks of pink-tinged meat floating on the surface. A shriveled, drifting chunk of flesh hovered on the top skimming of grease, bobbing around like a cork in the oily brew. As soon as it was there, it was gone in a flash and she was looking at another ordinary bowl of meat and vegetables. 

Ciri swallowed around the knot that had tightened in her throat. A rhyme she heard once while riding the roads outside of Ellander floated into her head. _Witch’s brew, children in the stew._ Since Belleteyn, she’d had a hard time stomaching meals that came out of cauldrons. 

_Had she not wandered off the trail…that could have been Gretka in their pot._

She shoved the dark thoughts back, tearing off a chunk of the brown bread from the heel for dipping instead of scooping up a spoonful. The first stew-softened bite of the bread made her eyes shut in bliss. 

“Stew’s delicious.” That’s all Ciri managed to get out between bites. The porridge she had eaten in White Orchard that morning held her over until about mid-noon. Since then her stomach had been growling like an angry wolf, placated only by bites of jerked meat and sips of water. 

“Me and Cook put it on just a couple hours ago, but it should be good for eatin’. ‘Least not where y’get the runs ‘cause the meats underdone.” 

Ciri dug into the meal, using torn-off pieces of bread to swipe up tender carrots and slices of meat—rabbit, she was sure of it. Soon the bowl was cleared out and her stomach was appeased. She sunk back against the wall, sighing. A sniffle broke her out of her revery. Ciri cracked an eyelid and saw Gretka mopping at her face with her sleeve, her eyes downcast as the fall of tears spotted her threadbare trousers. 

“What’re those for?” Her tone was just shy of chiding as she set her emptied bowl and spoon on the floor. Standing, she quietly came forward to set her hands on the girl’s shoulders. Her fingers tipped Gretka’s chin up, a needle-like sting going through her. The young girl’s expression was stricken with worry, 

“Thought I’d never see y’again,” the girl managed to whisper, so low that Ciri had to strain to hear it. 

It stung. Ciri knew what it was like to feel abandoned, to be utterly alone. What hurt the worst was that she had a hand in Gretka’s current situation. She’d saved her from the woods and then left her here when the ever-advancing pace of the hunt urged Ciri to leave Crow’s Perch. Of course the job in the kitchen was better than where the girl could’ve ended up. The alternatives were gruesome; her death at the end of a long trail that terminated in the Crones’ village. Another fate would’ve been a slower death in her family’s hut, left to starve and wither for want of so many mouths to feed during a lean year.

By residing in Crow’s Perch, Gretka had left behind those fates. The tradeoff was living in a different kind of danger—under the thumb of dangerous men. 

Ciri knew all about that kind of life.

_She can’t stay here._

Schooling her expression into something more cheerful than the frown that marred it, Ciri squeezed Gretka’s shoulders between her hands. “Nonsense,” she assured her. “We killed the Wolf King together. Can’t forget good help like you these days, especially when it comes to monster slaying.”

“You did that all on your own!” Gretka insisted, a smile breaking across her face like a small ray of sun. The tear tracks from earlier started to dry on her cheeks.

Ciri fished around in one of her pockets for a kerchief. Once she drew out the square of linen, the scent of lilacs and gooseberries drifted up to her nose. The corner of the cloth embroidered with a black _Y_ flapped up and down as she wiped Gretka’s shining face clean. “I had help from a very knowledgeable assistant. I distinctly recall help in picking all the herbs for the blade oil, you know.” 

Gretka puffed up with pride. Ciri watched as the girl’s eyes skittered across her face. She could feel the heat from the banked fire casting light across it, throwing everything into sharp relief. When Gretka reached up to touch Ciri’s cheek, Ciri didn’t draw away. 

“What happened t’yer face?” The girl’s grit-stained hands mapped out the patches of shiny, raw skin dotting Ciri’s face. She ignored the long, ugly scar that split along her left cheek. That old mark was more familiar—part of the Ciri that Gretka knew from months past. She could barely feel the heat and pressure of Gretka’s fingers over the newer marks.

She gave Gretka a sly glance. “Got on the wrong side of an ice giant, obviously.” 

“You’re teasin’!” Gretka almost cut her off, her look petulant at the notion of being told such a grand lie. “My gran said all those are dead!”

“Most of them, yes. The truth of it is that I had to go away for a while. Where I went it was cold—very cold. So freezing that the snow bit at my face. Luckily I got back with all my fingers and toes.” Ciri raised her hands, tugging a glove free to show Gretka her right hand. Tiny scars lined almost every inch of her hands, thin and fine like stitchwork, but they were thankfully whole.

“Y’got lots more scars than me,” Gretka said, her hands cupping Ciri’s as she leaned over them to squint at one mark that was shaped like a hook near her right thumb. A memento from her time with the Rats.

The offhanded comment sent Ciri back to when she first entered the kitchen, Gretka hiding behind the shelves and brandishing the wooden spoon like a weapon. Worry tightened in her throat, because _she_ was the one who left Gretka here. She didn’t have many options when she first left Crow’s Perch, but back then it was the safest course of action. Now she thought about the bodies hanging from the palisades, their eyes pecked out by carrion birds and their crimes written in a childish scrawl. 

This wasn’t a place for Gretka. Not if she had a say in it. 

“Do they treat you well?” Ciri asked, fearing the answer.

“Cook and Yoana do. But both of them told me t’keep my nose clean and stay clear of the Sergeant and his men. Said they were…” Gretka hesitated before answering, “Bad.”

“Do they try to come in here while Cook’s away?” Ciri felt the glove she was holding crumple in the fist she made, her knuckles blanching. 

Gretka hesitated for a hair’s breadth of a second, her shoulders tightening. “One tried to put his hand on my head, but I bit ‘em. _Really_ hard. Popped me on the nose. Had to go see a pellar to set it back straight, but they left me alone after that.”

“Good girl,” Ciri said with a touch of distraction, anger welling up in her. Gretka was barely eight if she was a day—her preoccupations should’ve consisted of making mud pies or berry picking with her brothers and sisters, not being smacked about like a cur by sellswords. But this was Velen. 

She resolved to get Gretka out, then and there. It would be business reserved for after she’d dealt with Weavess. Ciri certainly couldn’t pluck every child out of Velen to some safer measure of living, but she could start with the one who had been her first friend in this land. 

Her ungloved hand came up to ruffle Gretka’s dark hair. The girl giggled, tucking her chin towards her chest. The banked embers in the hearth were nearly dead, throwing the shadows in the kitchen into strange shapes. Ciri tugged at Gretka’s hand, nodding towards the door as she picked up her sword. 

“Gotta clean up,” Gretka protested, skittering off the grain sacks before snatching the bowl and spoon by the stool. After a few moments Gretka had washed both the bowl and the spoon with a rag wetted in a cistern by the stove, tucking them on a shelf for drying. 

Ciri motioned her towards the door, pointing with the pommel of her blade as she tugged her glove back on. “C’mon. We’ll bunk together tonight.”

Gretka hovered by the door, scuffing her shoe on the wooden planks. Her eyes were fixed on the floor in hesitation. “Cook said I’m not allowed in the guest room,” she trailed off.

“Cook’s not here now, is she?” Ciri made a show of looking around the kitchen. “Besides, I’d much rather have you nearby than holed up in the kitchen nook. You can make sure I get up at a decent hour, yes?”

“Yeah!” Gretka perked up at that, shouldering the door open. 

The two of them stepped out into the dimly lit hall, but their short walk to the door opposite was interrupted by shouting and hollering. A ragtag group of soldiers stumbled through the front door, their swords dragging on the wooden planks. Metal grated on the rough-hewn wood. Drippings that shone black in the poor light created a trail leading from the entryway to where the men swayed.

“Girlies, girlies! C’mon and play!” caroused one brave idiot once he caught sight of them. The three soldiers had to lean on each other for support to keep from falling all over themselves. They reeked of hooch and blood. Ciri could smell it from where she stood, clear down the hallway from them. 

Gretka had moved behind her, clutching the silver-inlaid belt that was strung about her waist. It jingled faintly as her fingers trembled against the metal. “Let’s go, Ciri,” Gretka whispered, her voice barely heard over the drunken shouting. 

Ciri bristled, smothering the urge to bare her teeth at the gaggle of soldiers as they staggered closer. As she advanced a few steps to meet them, Gretka’s fingers fell away from her belt. Ciri’s hand tightened around her sword’s scabbard. Their eyes were fixed on her, leering. They were passing around a bottle between them, taking long draws from the neck whilst talking loudly over each other. 

She heard snatched of discernible words amongst their jumbled slurring. They were not but ten paces away and in no shape to fight. One draw of her sword and she could cut through the lot of them like dry stalks.

“-tits so ripe-” 

“-that kitchen lass-”

“-fuck both of them bloody without batting an eye t’were it the old days-”

The roar of blood pounding in her ears was deafening. She reached up to cover the grip of her blade with her hand. 

“Watch ‘er, lads! Looks like she’s comin’ at us with that pigsticker of hers,” one of them jeered, the tip of his sword tracing lazy circles in her direction. A smirk split his craggy face, all yellow teeth and pockmarked skin. More droplets, dark as tar, pattered onto the floorboards with the motion of his blade. 

The sword hilt in her hand was practically singing to be pulled. But just as she stepped forward, caution stopped Ciri from clearing her sword from its scabbard. 

She was a guest. Guests in the North, despite what people from the south thought of them, did not kill under their host’s roof.

 _At least not yet_ , she reminded herself. _It won’t do to have us thrown out on the road at so late an hour, and the only remotely safe place is the damned Nilfgaardian camp. Can’t port there. Not with how close it lies to the bog. The Crone will know I’m here if I port._

The door to the study cracked to cast light into the hallway before the Sergeant poked his head out. 

“What’re you lot stewing around in the hall for when I expected you all an hour past? Get in, you loitering whoresons!” he roared, thrusting the door open. The three soldiers stumbled, blinking in the firelight coming from the study. She could hear them start mumbling excuses to the Sergeant. 

She veered to the nearby bench where she’d deposited her saddlebags earlier. A brief check assured her that everything was still within them, then she hauled the weight over her shoulder and returned to where Gretka stood shaking like a branch in a gale. True—it would be risky to port. Besides stopping to see Gretka along the way, the whole point of porting just outside of Blackbough this morning was to avoid detection. Crookback Bog was leagues away from this part of Velen. She would bet a fortune that Weavess currently had the attitude and temperament of a cornered, wounded animal—always divining the omens for impending danger. Ciri couldn’t risk a close arrival, not where a ripple of her power would set off early warning bells for the last Crone. 

Geralt was always emphasizing how important the element of surprise was. It could make or break a hunt. She wasn’t about to let herself fall prey to sloppiness by rushing out to fight the last Crone. Ciri could bide her time and patiently lay the trap. The payoff would be Weavess’s repulsive head on a stick and her empty village razed around her corpse—and the damn tapestry with it. 

“All of you sods get in ‘ere,” growled the Sergeant, jerking his chin at the open door to the study. Like a group of children fresh from a lashing, the three men shuffled out of the hallway with only a few grumblings.

The Sergeant gave Ciri a brief nod, ducking back into the study. Only when the door shut with a firm _clack_ did she finally exhale.

“Right,” she finally answered Gretka, pushing open the guest room’s door. As soon as they were both in, she picked up the wooden bar that was gathering cobwebs in a corner and slotted it in its brackets across the inward opening door. _There_ , she thought, _in case they get any bright ideas about a break-in tonight._ She let her head drop against the cool wood, exhaling as the tingle in her limbs faded.

Inside the windowless room, both of them set about getting ready for bed. After she dumped her saddlebags on the top of a dresser, Ciri found some flint to strike the wick of a single taper into life, illuminating the large desk in the corner. Ciri swiped her hand along the surface and the fine brown suede of her gloves came away covered in a film of dust. The taper was long with enough wax to last most of the night so she set the candlestick down there.

As she stood her sword against the side of the bed—a decent-sized piece of furniture that was wedged against the far wall opposite the door—Gretka caught her by the wrist. “Promise you’ll be here in the mornin’?” she asked, her other hand fiddling with the counterpane spread across the bed. It was a beautiful tapestry-like work, moth-eaten from disuse with the woven red and gold threads fading. 

“I swear it on my life,” Ciri promised, crossing her heart. The small hand that’d caught her squeezed her arm. 

She tucked Gretka into bed after the girl toed off her ragged shoes. The sheets gave off a musty, disused scent as Ciri smoothed them out. 

She dressed down very little for bed; only her capelet, various belts, straps, and the leather corset that cinched over her shirt were discarded next to her saddlebags. The dagger she wore around her waist was secured beneath her pillow, tucked into its scabbard but within easy reach should the need arise. 

Settling on top of the bed’s counterpane, she maneuvered until she was facing the door on her side with the pillow beneath her cheek. Her fingers closed around her dagger, a slender stiletto. 

If they tried to get in, they’d have to go through her to get to Gretka. 

Ciri shut her eyes, willing herself to sleep as she had on so many other nights. But after a half-hour of soft, calm breathing and many attempts to clear her mind, sleep seemed as far away as Zerrikania. She thought of tomorrow and the outcomes, of the long road towards the center camp. Who would be there? She hadn’t thought to send word ahead. Would the camp already have broken up by now? If that was the case, would she have to go to the city and find the Nilfgaardian ambassador to bring her answer to Emhyr?

“Can’t sleep?” Gretka’s whisper slowed the racing thoughts.

“Seems I’m not the only one.” Ciri turned over onto her other side to face the girl. She loosened her grip on the stiletto beneath the pillow, tucking her arms around herself to ward off a chill. The room didn’t have any kind of heating to speak of save for the warmth she’d find under the covers, but that would mean tangling herself under bedclothes. She wanted a firm command of her limbs and the freedom to shoot straight off the bed at a moment’s notice, should the Sergeant’s men come to their door tonight.

“Can’t sleep either. Thinkin’ about those men. What they said…how they looked at you.” Gretka’s small fingers reached up to pat at Ciri’s chin, dropping to knot in the fabric of her shirt. She clung there. Ciri could feel her tremors so she reached up to cover the child’s hands with her own.

“They’re not getting in here. Not if I have any say in it. Craftier creatures than those sods have tried, believe me. And failed.” Her tone was just shy of fierce and not the least bit gentle. She brought the fire in her own heart and held it out to Gretka in her voice, willing it to quell the tremors in the girl’s hands. 

_Take courage_ , she thought. That was something she had an abundance of these days. Ciri tucked a strand of hair out of the girl’s face. She peered up at her. 

“Might could go to sleep with a story. Just like the last time you were here?” Gretka asked hesitantly, loosening her grip on Ciri’s shirt long enough to lay her hands on a pillow.

Ciri thought back for a moment, recalling the story in question. It came to her gradually as she gathered up the threads of memory. “Then how about we finish that tale? The one I started when we first came to Crow’s Perch. That first night here you couldn’t sleep.” 

Gretka was vibrating with excitement. “Yes!” she said, nudging Ciri to go on. 

Ciri smiled down at her, continuing, “The last we left our tale, the Witcher had run across a village plagued by a wolf who stole away children in the night. Was that the lay of it?” 

“It was that!” Gretka huffed impatiently, bidding her to get on with it by nudging her again.

“So it was. And the Witcher bargained with the alderman and came to this deal: promises of gold coin, oats for her horse, and a place to sleep in the barn loft…” 

It went on like that for at least an hour. The taper on the desk burned down a full inch as Ciri watched it. Gretka would draw a breath in and hold her hands over her mouth during the action filled bits, expectant and in awe as the Witcher heroine wove and twirled her way through the story. An effortless dance of mystery and swordplay, deduction and disguise. Ciri had to shoe in details as she went along, but the tale came to her effortlessly.

“‘I have enormous eyes, all the better to see you with!’ shrieked the wolf. 'I have enormous paws, all the better to seize and hug you with!’” Ciri mimed claws by curling her fingers, jabbing them in Gretka’s direction. The girl scooted out of arm’s reach and ducked her head under her pillow, peering out with a giggle.

Ciri continued in the growling, gravely tones of the wolf. “‘Everything about me is enormous, everything, and soon you will discover it for yourself. Why are you looking at me so strangely, little girl? Why do you not answer?’”

She reached out and tapped Gretka. “And then the Witcher girl smiled and said, ‘I have a surprise for you.’” A pause.

Gretka brought her head out from under the covers, her eyes wide and watery and she waited breathless for the next part of the story. 

Ciri leaned down and whispered conspiratorially, “And then the Witcher girl went to sleep, as should Gretka.”

“C’mon, Ciri!” The protest was half-hearted and broken by an enormous yawn out of the little girl.

“It’ll end when you can keep your eyes open long enough to hear the finale. But for now it’s time to sleep.”

That was met with more grumblings. But Ciri had told the truth of it. Gretka laid her head down, shut her eyes, and soon her breathing evened into the soft rhythm of sleep after a few minutes. She noticed the smudges of dark circles around the girl’s eyes for the first time.

_Not much sleep to be had around here, it seems. Not with those louts prowling the halls at all hours of the night. Poor thing probably doesn’t get any peace._

It was a hard sort of living to be had in Velen. Even for a kitchen girl. Ciri turned over onto her other side to face the door, closing her hand over the hilt of the stiletto beneath her pillow.

 _I don’t know why I expected this land to be any different than the last time I was here_ , she thought. Her already low expectations about the state of affairs in Velen were being blown out of the water with every passing encounter. _It wasn’t much of a province to begin with, though. Now it’s reached absolute rock bottom._

Gretka snuffled in her sleep and scooted closer. Her knobby knees tucked up against the small of Ciri’s back. She smiled in the almost-dark of the room. She’d missed the quieter moments like this, the closeness of a friend. To hear Gretka’s peaceful breathing made the fight against the Frost worth it.

 _This is who I did it for_ , she reminded herself. _Children like her. People like her._

She had paid dearly for her newfound freedom with her sweat and her blood, with all the lost lives of the many friends who littered her past. Now she was at an uncertain crossroad in her life; one path lead towards a future she wanted with every fibre of her being, but the other veered towards something bigger—a life that she knew would demand more of her than anything prior to it.

Her fingers tightened around the stiletto’s hilt as the echoing shouts of the drunken soldiers leaked under the door. Gretka stirred in her sleep. 

Tomorrow would be the day where Ciri would start down one road and forsake the other. 

One last bit of business was left before she settled into the remaining months of life as she knew it. Once Weavess was dead and Vesemir’s medallion was back around her neck, she _knew_ she could finally turn the page on this part of her life.

Before an uneasy sleep claimed her, Ciri realized something that tugged her mouth into crooked line. After years on the run, she was finally the one giving chase. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	3. The Small Hours

A touch to her shoulder brought Ciri out of a deep, dreamless sleep and she had to force her fingers to uncoil from her dagger’s hilt. The familiar scent of woodsmoke and strong lye soap reached her nose. She cracked open one eye and saw Gretka hovering over her, a pewter candlestick cupped in her palm. The bright light of the candle she was carrying made Ciri shut her eye against the glare. 

Finally, she summoned the willpower to sit up. The familiar sensation of having slept fully clothed accompanied the motion. She wriggled her numb toes in her boots, stretching her arms high towards the ceiling. It did nothing to uncoil the knot of anxiety in her stomach. Whereas yesterday had been the day _before_ , today was the _day of._ Even if she spared her mare a hard pace, Ciri would arrive at the Nilfgaardian army’s camp by nightfall. There was no more delaying handing over her answer for Emhyr.

Penned in her own neat script, it detailed her acceptance of his offer: a place at court, recognition as his heir. A new life in Nilfgaard geared towards schooling her in the art of statecraft and making her suitable for the title of _empress_. 

_What would’ve been my life already had Cintra not fallen_? The thought brought a sharp jab of anger to her heart. If Emhyr had not sent his armies towards the country of her birth, would she still be hovering at her grandmother’s side? Calanthe would’ve taught her everything she needed to know and more about ruling, about living a life deserving of songs. 

But now her grandmother’s bones rested in a mass grave full of other Cintrans. And here Ciri stood, somehow still alive. Everything that had happened to her since Cintra’s fall had honed her instinct to fight—to survive. 

She didn’t know where to put her anger then, so she set it aside and directed her attention at Gretka.

“What’s the time?” Ciri murmured, rubbing the sleep grit from her eyes. Her gloved fingertips came away stained charcoal from the mix of goose fat and ash she had used to shadow her eyes. She’d bother with doing up her face later—she had no fresh ash to mix with the tin of fat she carried in her saddlebags. That and she was sorely in need of a wash. Covering her face with the sooty mix wasn’t going to help her in that regard.

“Half-past the fourth mark on the candle,” Greta supplied, handing her pieces of discarded gear that sat atop her saddlebags. _Almost dawn_ , Ciri thought, fastening her corset over the wrinkled cotton of her shirt. All of the various belts and straps went on after that, her dagger and sword finding their customary spots at her hip and back. Her muscles were still sluggish with dissipating sleep as she tied off a knot to secure the oilcloth around her shoulders, fumbling to straighten the hood so it didn’t snag against the hilt of her sword. 

“Are the men still up?” she asked, remembering the pack of jackals from last night. Ciri didn’t know if she could exercise patience this early in the morning if she ran into one on the way to the privy.

“They were all passed out under the stairs when I went t’fetch you some water for washin’.” Gretka moved over to the desk where a hunk of soap sat beside a chipped bowl brimming with steaming water. 

_Gretka must’ve gotten up early to boil it._ Ciri’s fondness for the child deepened as she stood on stiff legs to shamble over towards the desk, the promise of hot water pulling her along like a fish on a line. “If we’re lucky they’ll all be keeled over from the drink.”

The girl tittered, hiding her grin behind a soot-blackened hand. She set the candlestick down, giving Ciri a bit of light to wash by. The candle she’d lit last night had long since gone out. The girl started to inch towards the door. “Gotta go help Cook get breakfast on, but just wanted t’make sure you got up early, like you said.”

Ciri smiled after her, already stripping her gloves off. “Must’ve slept harder than I wanted to. Could’ve overslept if it wasn’t for you.” 

“You were sleeping like my gran did—snorin’ and snatchin’ up all the covers!” Gretka giggled, already halfway out the room. The hall outside was dark as pitch, but Ciri could see a faint line of light at the bottom of the kitchen door. 

“Cheeky. Let’s see you spend a couple of hours in the saddle and come down perky,” Ciri replied in mock peevishness, tossing one of her gloves at the girl. Gretka caught it, dropping it on the bed before ducking out of the room with a high-pitched laugh. Ciri shut the door behind her. 

When she was at the wash basin and alone in the room, the quiet brought her dark thoughts back to the fore. 

Anger came first. Yes, she was angry at her father. There hadn’t passed a day in her life when she hadn’t been angry at him. Discovering the truth of who he was, what he had done to the country of her birth had snapped something brittle inside of her. Her identity was rearranged. She was no longer the daughter of Duny and Pavetta. She was instead the daughter of Emhyr var Emreis, the ruler of the most vast empire in the world and conqueror of the Northern Realms. That had left her raw and ashamed. Better a daughter to a dead man than to a murderer. 

Her father had been dead to her for years in both body and spirit until the truth came out and part of her wish he’d stayed that way. 

And then, of his own accord, Emhyr had freely given her the best revenge Ciri could imagine. Her surprising, infuriating inheritance. His empire. His title. Calanthe’s dream for her as heir apparent to the throne of Cintra and so much more. Ciri could rebuild Cintra and all the other ravaged civilizations overrun by Nilfgaard's expansion. She could do what scores of rulers and their armies could not accomplish. She could dismantle the Nilfgaardian war machine piece by bloody piece. 

She had defeated the White Frost. Now she could be a world-maker for those that needed it. 

Or she would be, once she rinsed the taste of sleep out of her mouth.

Ciri set about cleaning her teeth with the fringed end of the willow bark stick she kept in her saddlebags. Yennefer’s precious deodorizing powder was rubbed into her armpits, and Ciri sneezed at the resulting burst of ground lavender and talc powder. Taking her sleep-tousled hair down from its tail and forcing it into order was easy without a mirror. She’d done it a thousand times before. She could do it blindfolded. Hair secured at the nape of her neck, sporting a freshly washed face and clean teeth, Ciri felt more like a living, breathing person than she had in days.

Her morning routine squared away, Ciri felt economic enough to sneak in a bit of breakfast before her next order of business. Crow’s Perch would be stirring with activity soon, and she wanted to get on the road at first light. Dawn would have the roads well-lit and all the necrophages would have slunk back into their nests after a full night of gorging themselves. There were fewer bodies littering the land than there had been in summer, when the war ground to a halt. Ciri imagined the ghouls were getting more desperate for a steady food source now. They’d start to encroach on livestock and villagers soon. 

_Plenty of work here in Velen for witchers._

The kitchen, when she entered it, was a small hive of activity. Gretka darted from a nearby trestle table to the larder in the back, scooping up handfuls of grassy ranogrin and tea leaves from clay jars on the shelves. She carried handfuls of dried herbs to the roaring hearthfire, dumping them into a whistling kettle. A young woman with a poker bent over the fire beside Gretka, stoking it to heat the underbellies of the pots.

“Morning,” Ciri greeted Cook—for it could only be Cook that was minding the fire. She was a tall, red-headed young woman with a hooked nose and stained apron covering her roughspun dress. Ciri joined Gretka, who was busy moving the hot kettle from the fire to a scorched tabletop, and leaned a shoulder against a nearby post.

“Mornin’, ma’am.” Cook shot a look over her shoulder. Ciri could see the barest veiled curiosity in her dark eyes. “Didn’t know we’d be entertaining a guest here at the Perch—the Sergeant didn’t say nary a thing t’me about it until I came in t’start fixing up the porridge for the men.” 

“I was a late arrival,” Ciri paused, accepting an earthenware mug of hot, fragrant tea from Gretka. “I only made plans to come up to Velen a few days ago.”

Cook pursed her lips, turning back to the cauldron that bubbled with lumpy beige porridge. “Whereabouts you come up from?”

Ciri blew across the top of the tea, watching as the softened needles of ranogrin swirled around. The herb gave it a sweet, piney smell just shy of saccharine. She considered her next words carefully—it was easy enough to answer questions with nothing but the barest facts after having done it for years. While a lie wasn’t merited, she didn’t have to tell Cook everything. 

“White Orchard,” Ciri murmured, her nose practically dipping into the tea as she sipped. The liquid was just this side of boiling, so she held it on her tongue, the stinging heat dulling some before it was tepid enough to swallow. 

Cook made a surprised noise, stirring hard at the porridge. Ciri noticed the gruel was so thick that the woman had to put her shoulders into the work, stirring like an oarsman in rough chop until the ladle finally beat the substance into submission. Gretka flitted between them, gathering up a stack of pewter cups and platters that were crowded on surfaces throughout the kitchen.

Cook blew at a loose strand of hair hanging in her eyes, swatting the wooden ladle against the lip of the cauldron until the porridge clinging to it came free and slopped back in. “Lovely village, that. My gran came from near there, ‘fore she met my granda and moved up t’here. She used t’say Birke was the best time to be around White Orchard, since that was when the apple trees would bud and bloom after the thaw.” 

The redhead’s words tugged at something in Ciri, like the stray thread hanging loose at the edge of a tapestry. In her mind’s eye she could begin to see the string unraveling from the weave, hearing her own grandmother’s drawl, solemn and steady, but it was gone as soon as it came. Calanthe had been dead for nearly a decade past. The memory of her lovely face and calm, lilting voice had tumbled into a void in her mind, just as her body did over the rampart wall.

Time chipped away at the best of Ciri’s memories. Its slow march blurred scenes of her childhood, once keenly remembered to the most minute detail. Now it was doing the same to later years—her mind clutched at the bright spots like a lifeline. The thrill of beating the Gauntlet for the first time at Kaer Morhen. Geralt’s mouth had turned up at the corners for a split second before he made her run it again. The drowsy summer days spent in the shade under massive trees, listening to Yennefer’s voice as she read aloud during their time in Ellander. Triss painting her face, her brush a whisper on Ciri’s mouth as she colored it a faint shade of rose.

Of course the the ugliest memories faded last, the ones worth forgetting. Cavorting with the Rats when they weren’t killing, the coppery reek of the arena in Claremont, the burn of fisstech hot in her nose—she resolutely pushed back the memories of being thrilled by the blood she made run with her blade, shutting it away somewhere safe. 

But what remained was worth keeping. All of those happy moments shone out like a beacon across a dark, deep sea. 

Ciri forced her shoulder to relax against the post and unclenched her fingers.. She reached out to tousle Gretka’s hair as the girl marched passed, her arms laden with dishes on their way to the wash. Gretka giggled and ducked her head. “Never seen White Orchard in the spring,” Ciri said. “My friends and I have been planning to winter there. I might stay until Birke comes, but I’m not quite sure. Plans being subject to change and all.”

 _To put it lightly_ , she reminded herself. Change was coming. Today was the day she would deliver her decision to Emhyr. Today’s decision would put her on one path or the other. Once down that path, there was not much of a chance to turn back—when she committed to her choice, it was as good as set in stone. Her stomach lurched.

It was a good thing she had not eaten yet. Anything she put in her stomach save for weak tea and water ran the risk of coming up again. Already she could feel her gut twisting itself into knots. Ciri swallowed more tea to douse over the fluttering jumble of anxiety that felt like it was forming just below her ribs. 

Cook _hrm_ ’d in agreement, her eyes on the porridge. “Aye, something to keep in mind, if you’re considerin’ staying on after the winter down there,” she said, stabbing into the cauldron with her ladle once more. 

Ciri admired her dedication—if she were at the head of this operation, the gruel in the cauldron would’ve long since crisped into ash. “I’ll have to keep your advice in mind,” she said, setting her emptied cup down on the counter. Gretka was on it quick as a magpie. The cup was carried off by the young girl for washing. Ciri rubbed at the back of her neck, a kink forming just to the side. “I need a word with Yoana. Is she usually awake at this hour?”

Cook nodded, her eyes still fixed on the bubbling oats in the cauldron. “Oh, aye, she’s up with the cock’s crowing and usually at the forge until dusk. I’d imagine she’s workin’ on some commission now, flooded as she’s been with them from all manner of Nilfgaardian officers,” she mused, a touch of pride in her voice. “Our Yoana is gonna put this stack of rocks and wood on the map, ‘fore long.”

“Then I’d best get to her now before she’s too busy to speak,” Ciri excused herself with a duck of her head, making her way towards the door. She gave a wave to Gretka who was making quick work of plucking a fat, headless chicken on a stool in the corner.

 _Now for the other matter of business,_ she thought. Geralt had told her of someone in Crow’s Perch to call upon someday and now was a good time as any to seek her out. Ciri'd never had a bespoke suit of armor to call her own. Armor certainly wouldn’t help with Emhyr, but she’d be damned if she went south only to commission a Nilfgaardian craftsman when she had every chance to call upon the services of a true master armorsmith of the Northern Kingdoms.

Calanthe would be proud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Toss a kudo to your writer! Oh, readers of plenty! Or a comment. Or a bookmark. Thank you a thousand times over for the read. 
> 
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	4. The Armorer from Holmstein

Cook started, seeming to remember something before Ciri could push open the door to the hall. She hollered at Gretka over her shoulder, still stirring the porridge in the cauldron. “Gretka, go and pack the lady somethin’ for the road!”

Gretka dropped the chicken, scrambling to fetch a package tucked away on a nearby shelf. The girl held it over her head as she hurried over to Ciri. “I got it already!”

Ciri took the oilcloth parcel from Gretka, grinning down at the girl’s beaming expression. It didn’t take much to make Gretka look bursting with pride. “Thank you both for thinking of me. It’s rare to find hosting like yours these days.”

“Wouldn’t be polite to send you off without a bit of gnosh for midday. You got much ground left t’cover before you get where you’re goin’?” Cook asked, her eyes still on the oats.

“A full day’s ride. And that’s not sparing my horse any,” Ciri said, tucking the parcel under her arm.

“You’re not going right away, are you?” Gretka whispered, reaching to tug at one of Ciri’s belts. Her cheery expression cracked. Then Ciri saw the fear in her eyes.

“I’ve got a bit of business to discuss with Yoana. I’ll be back soon, alright?” Covering the girl’s head with her gloved hand, she gave the mop of brown hair an affectionate tousle. That set everything to rights, judging by how Gretka’s face lit up with excitement. She returned to her spot on the stool to resume work on the limp, half-plucked chicken.

The hall was pitch-black at this early hour, the tapers long since burned out. Ciri fetched her saddlebags from her room before making for the entryway. The smell of stewing oats and brown sugar from the kitchen followed her until she reached the door. A cold autumn wind met her on the wooden landing that overlooked the yard. It teased the hair at the nape of her neck, stirring a shudder from her.

Ciri pulled her hood up to shield her head from the worst of the breeze. It would warm up soon but for now she kicked herself mentally for forgoing a coat. She cast a look at the moon dying in the east, tucked behind the ruined watchtower at the far end of the yard. The garden in the corner looked uncared for. Stars were still winking in the deep, velveteen blue of the sky when she looked straight up. A faint red was shading the sky westward and it grew stronger the longer she looked that way. It’d be light soon.

_I’ll have to get on the road if I want to make the camp by nightfall_ , she reasoned. It would be many leagues of hard riding, but her mare was well-rested by now.  The horse trader in Blackbough had assured her the mare was a sturdy creature—thus far the mare hadn’t proven his boastings wrong. She could take the pace that Ciri set.

_Always seem to end up with black mares_. _Ought to be a good omen, that_. The thought popped into her head and hit her hard.  A flash of memory came to her: a thick mane, warm eyes, and her glossy black coat twitching as Ciri rubbed her down with straw.

She wondered what became of Kelpie after so much time. There was always a catch in her chest when she thought of her old mare. _Not now_ , she reminded herself. Plenty of time to think about that later.

As she moved down the steps to the yard, the wind was reminding her how cold the North could be during the autumn. The wind had a bite to it that got beneath her clothes like a cocksure suitor’s hands.

Experiencing a cold like this reminded her of a world she had passed through where the complete opposite was standard. That world was always shrouded in a mild, humid haze at all hours of the day.  The people of that hot place spoke nary above a whisper during the dark hours of the evening and early morning, fearing that anything louder would displease sleeping spirits.

Compared to the quiet of that world, her own always seemed to have some raucous scene waiting for her every time she turned a corner. But for now, all was calm.

Ciri tried to make as little noise as possible on opening one of the stable’s tall doors.  The warm, thick smell of horses enveloped her as she made her way towards the stalls, straw and dirt crunching underfoot. There was some light cast from an oil lamp burning on a table near the door. She could see her mare listing from side to side as she slept in the stall furthest to the left. Her tack straddled the half-wall of the stall, gleaming with oil after a fresh cleaning. In each of the other four stalls stood fine, sturdy horses that slept on despite her presence. She turned to  softly  call a hello to where the stable lads slept in the overhead lofts. A rustling of hay followed before a smudged, pinched face poked out over the edge to peer down at her.

“Come down, lad,” she said, keeping her voice low. Holding her parcel aloft was the incentive that got the boy out of his makeshift bed. He skittered down the loft’s ladder with the nimbleness a spinner spider. The skinny, pale-faced stablehand scrubbed at his face to clear the sleep from his eyes. She stuck the cloth-covered lump of bread and cheese under his nose.

That improved his wakefulness. His eyes popped open, becoming as wide as saucers while his hands scrambled to grasp the parcel of food.  He used his teeth to break the parcel's twine before he wedged his fingers into a pack of jam, scooping mouthfuls to his mouth with dirty fingers. He chased it with bites from the crusty loaf of bread, still warm from the oven. Ciri noticed how his clothes hung like a sack on his small frame.

_This boy’s not getting fed_. Anger settled in her gut, coursing up to close her throat. Her fists clenched. Gretka might’ve come by more meals by living in the kitchen. _But this one is managing to get by with only scraps_.

The more she saw of Crow’s Perch, the less inclined she was to keep her patience and behave as a good guest of the Sergeant. Foul mischief was at work under his leadership and the signs flew at her face like a flock of startled grouse. She’d be a fool to ignore them, much less let it carry on.  The Baron had not been an ideal leader, but his style of showing muscle wasn’t hanging people from the palisades or starving his stable lads.

“Think you could get my mare ready for the road?” she asked, motioning to the stall all the way at the opposite end.

The stable lad answered with a nod, his mouth too stuffed with food to even garble a word out. He toddled off to her mare as Ciri made for door to the outside. The air outside of the stable remained shy of freezing, but now she was ready for it. She hunched her shoulders to the wind and cut across the yard. The big oak that sat in the middle of it swayed in the strong breeze, creaking and groaning like an old rocking chair. A short walk to the gatehouse’s breezeway into the smithy yard without encountering nary a soul. Everyone kept indoors at this hour with the chill.

Under the eaves of the gatehouse was the brick forge and worktables that housed an assortment of mail and plate. Ciri spotted Yoana bent at the anvil.  The brawny woman was striking clean blows at the length of a longsword, flattening the metal with each hit. She put her whole body into the effort.

A dark blonde braid swung against her shoulder as she lifted her arm high and then brought it down with a thunderous clang.  Sparks flew onto her scorched apron as she worked, the constant pounding of iron on steel ringing in the empty yard.

“Got a moment for a customer?”  Ciri shouted over the noise, planting herself near the worktable to admire the craftsmanship of some of the pieces . There was one her size, a shirt with bright steel scales like a trout’s skin. The shirt base of leather was like butter beneath her fingers. Until now she never had the time or coin available to wait for a proper witcher’s armor.

Part of her wondered at the practicality of getting new armor when this very well might be her last hunt. Nilfgaardian empresses didn't need armor. They needed gowns and informed advisors and a network of spies.

She was only halfblooded, though. Ciri was still a Daughter of Raven like her mother and her grandmother before her. Cintran queens didn't shirk the field during wartime and clad themselves in armor when the occasion called for it. She could hold on to that last piece of her heritage and take it southward. Damn what the Black Ones would think of the barbarian and her strange Northern ways.

And now she had the time and coin to afford the luxury of waiting on a commissioned piece. Geralt had told her quite a bit about this unassuming armorer in Crow's Perch.  She was the one responsible for the splendid gear Geralt wore now, every stitch a testament to her craftsmanship.

Yoana had heard her over the shrieking of metal. She spared a glance for the newcomer standing near her wares.  The master crafter set aside the longsword she had been flattening, wiping the sweat on her palms off on her apron. Her earbobs danced in the firelight of the forge. They were the same bright gold discs that Ciri grew up admiring on most Skellige women. The cut of her clothing and shoes was islander as well. Yoana walked up to her, still wiping down her hands from the oil and sweat.

“Aye, I’ve got a minute ‘fore the brunt of the work—” she halted in step and speech. Her face morphed from polite curiosity to shock when she got a proper look at Ciri’s face beneath the hood.  Yoana raised a cracked, weathered hand to cover her mouth before uncovering it straight away.

“There’s a face I didn’t think to spot again,” the armorer said, a grin cracking across her round face. She set her arms akimbo and took the measure of Ciri, her bright eyes raking her from toe to top.

Ciri cocked her hips, mirroring the blonde woman’s posture. “Was in the area, thought I’d pop by for a visit,” she replied, her tone glib. It had been a while since a handsome woman had taken stock of her.  When faced with the frank appraisal, Ciri didn’t quite know what to do with it save for falling back on playful banter.

Yoana chuckled, putting the table in-between them as she straightened the items lain out on the surface . Metal scratched on wood as she smoothed out the mail shirt Ciri had been admiring earlier. “Quite the surprise to see you here of all places—what brings you to the Perch, ma’am?”

Casting a glance beneath the cover of her hood at the yard and outbuildings, Ciri searched for any bystanders and found none. The only company they had in the smithy yard were a few chickens pecking at the ground near a ramshackle coop.

Years on the run from the Wild Hunt had made her more than a little wary. Paranoid was an uglier word for it, but little by little she was learning to stop looking over her shoulder. Nothing was after her. She was after _it_.

This was the new world she’d made for herself—one where her grand role in the cosmic scheme of things seemed finished. Now she could focus on what came after. One where destiny could sod off.  The past few years of her life had been an exercise in plotting her survival—always thinking of her next step to stay ahead. _Think of the Hunt, think of the Frost, think of the future_. But now those obstacles were out of her way and the path was ahead of her, beckoning.

_Which path, though?_

“It’s Ciri, please,” she told Yoana, managing a smile. “We didn’t get a chance to talk much when last I came through. Geralt got more time with you than I did, or so I’ve gathered by what he’s been wearing as of late.”

He had been sporting fine armor as of late, leading to a great deal of needling and questions from herself, Lambert, and Eskel about who the maker was  .  Ciri imagined it wouldn’t take long before the other two witchers came tromping through to commission Yoana.

The armorer’s grin was so wide that she looked in danger of splitting her cheeks. “That’s an understatement.  He’d come riding through here like clockwork with armor commissions after the Baron left for the Blue Mountains with his lady wife. Kept me more than occupied with work.”

Ciri felt a catch in her chest at hearing Yoana mention Philip Strenger. The short time she’d spent at the Perch was too brief to form an exhaustive opinion of the Blood Baron.  What she’d heard about him after the fact left Ciri with a twisting feeling of hot anger and disappointment in her gut whenever she thought of him. He had seemed so gregarious when she’d shown up on his doorstep months ago, Gretka in tow. The Bloody Baron was brash around the edges, of course, but generous to those in need and well loved by his men. He’d taken her and Gretka in, offering them his hospitality for as long as they both needed.

She fidgeted with the ornamental belt strung around her hips, silver buckles clinking against each other as the links shifted.  “Which left Geralt with ample amounts of storytelling time for you,” Ciri supplied to Yoana, leaning against the worktable. Geralt wasn’t all silence and seriousness when it came down to it.

“More than enough time to get a fair share of monster slaying tales while he sharpened those blades of his,” Yoana said. She fussed over her wares on the workbench before dusting her work-hewn hands on the leather of her apron. Behind her, the cherry red embers popped and fizzled in the brick hearth. Yoana motioned her closer to it. “C’mon, no need to put up with this breeze. Not with a fire like this going.”

“Thank you,” Ciri murmured, tugging the hood of her cloak closer to her cheeks.  The wind was beginning to bite at her nose, reddening it until she could almost cross her eyes and spot the rosy tinge covering the tip of it. It wasn’t the physical chill of the morning bothering her. An uncomfortable pit had knotted in her stomach at the mention of the Baron, hard and lumpy like a bit of coal. She moved closer to the fire, hugging herself to shrug off the chill.

When it came time to swap stories about their respective adventures in Velen, Geralt had popped the bubble on her perception of what kind of man the Baron was.  In true Geralt fashion he hadn’t spared her the gory details of Philip Strenger’s past transgressions—a violent drunkard that’d caused his own family’s breakup with his actions, driving his battered wife into the service of the Crones to seek help in ridding herself of an unwanted child.  Besides the trouble with his wife, his daughter found a new life far, far away from Crow's Perch after enduring the terror of his drunken, semi-regular beatings of her mother.

Which had all led to Geralt’s involvement in the outcome of Anna Strenger’s release from the Crones’ service.  Ciri wondered if the woman had ever found a measure of healing for her wrung-out mind, or if the Baron had actually turned over a new leaf with his wife.

But in his effort to turn back the clock on years of abuse by finding a good healer for her, he had appointed the Sergeant to command in his absence.

_Who seems more inclined to solve all his problems by stringing them up by their necks_ , she thought  grimly.

“Aye, it weren’t no secret that Geralt was hunting for an ashen haired lass named Ciri,” Yoana broke her reverie, palms turned to the fire to let the warmth leech into her skin. “I remembered you well enough from the time you were here. I prodded him a bit about that, but I didn’t have much to tell him since you were in and out of Crow’s Perch like a flash.”

Ciri tamped back on the dark thoughts that she was brooding over, resolving to mull over them later. It was a fool’s effort to gnaw at something she had no clear cut path to resolve. Not yet, at least.

Instead she focused her attention on Yoana, giving her the most charming look she could muster.  “It’s a good thing he had the time to stay and seek out your talents, elsewise I’d have never know the North’s best armorer’s was right under my nose.”  Easy praise for Ciri to give since it was such a blatant fact—Geralt’s armor had no match and the craftsmanship of it had spawned all manner of green-eyed monsters in Eskel and Lambert.

And a little bit of envy in herself to boot.

Heat came into the other woman’s cheeks at that compliment, causing her to jerk her head down and stare  bashfully  at the packed dirt under their feet. Ciri felt a stab of pleasure at having caused such a reaction. She hadn’t quite lost her charm. “Lebioda’s knees, now you’re flatterin’.”

Ciri tried to stop her with a raising of both her hands, shaking her head. She wouldn’t hear any self-depreciation if she could help it. “It’s completely warranted,” she insists, folding her arms across her chest.  “You managed to reproduce witcher armor that hasn’t  been forged  in decades, let alone centuries for some schools.”

The armorer paused, smiling  archly  as realization dawned on her face. “Is that why you’ve come by this morning? See if you could flatter a commission out of me?”

“Is it that obvious?” Ciri slid around the corner of the table and was within arm’s reach of Yoana in the span of a few heartbeats. The straw haired lass look startled, blinking from the spot Ciri was standing in to the one she occupied.

“You move like a viper when it suits you, eh?” she teased.

“Courtesy of a well-rounded education at Kaer Morhen, the finest finishing school for young ladies,” Ciri replied, tugging her sword free from its sheath. She held up the gwyhr for the islander’s inspection. “Think you can spot me a sharpening while I speak?”

Yoana didn’t answer in the affirmative so much as she lifted the sword from Ciri’s hands. Her face morphed into a look of awe—it reminded Ciri of a child gazing into the window of a toy shop.  The armorer’s expression glazed over and she became enraptured by the workmanship of the blade.

“Gnomish. Skate’s skin on the grip. Forty inches, give or take. What’s that cutout near the crossguard there?” The armorer turned the sword over, the weak morning sun glinting off of the polished steel. A beam of light shining through the cutout on the blade illuminated the shape of a diving bird on the ground below.

Ciri’s mouth quirked up at the corners in a half-smile as Yoana made the shape of the bird dart back and forth by giving the sword a lazy swing. It cut across the dirt of the yard before coming back to rest by their feet.

“Sentimental ornament, I suppose,” Ciri mused, rocking back onto her heels.  She let Yoana continue on with her awe-filled inspection of the sword as she carried it over to the sharpening tools.  Soon the yard was loud with the sounds of the armorer working her whetstone down one side of the blade, careful to do the same to the other edge after counting out her strokes.

While she worked, Ciri rattled off her ideas for a commission.  Midway through the sharpening Yoana stopped her with a raised hand, darting from the worktable to her own hut. She was gone for only a moment before she came rushing back out with a weathered ledger held together with bits of twine.  The tome dropped onto what seemed like the only sport on the worktable not crowded with armor pieces with a resounding thunk.

Her callused fingers started shoveling pages back, design after design revealed on each page she turned over. Finally she came to what appeared to be the only blank piece of parchment in the work ledger. A nub of charcoal came out of Yoana’s apron pockets.

“And…continue on with it, if’n you please,” the islander motioned Ciri on with a beckoning of her finger, nose touching the parchment as she bent over the book. She sketched.  Meaningless lines soon took a shape as the schematics became clearer and more formulated. The armorer would annotate measurements in the margins by looking at Ciri to size her up.  Yoana would pause and tighten a length of knotted cord around the other woman’s limbs to measure the circumference, stretching it longways for an idea of length.

The sun was well up by the time they finished. By then, Ciri’s sword was sharp enough to cut through the thinnest of feathers and the schematics laid on the page.  Yoana dusted off her charcoal-smudged hands, grinning down at the work waiting for her on the parchment. “Well, you won't have to twist my arm to take on this kind of work.”

Ciri chuckled, sheathing her blade after inspecting Yoana’s sharpening job. The woman was a gifted metalworker. Even she couldn’t give her gwhyr an edge like the islander could. As the crossguard hit the top of the sheath with a distinct _snickt_ , Ciri added, “And I promise you a heavy commission. Half on start, half on completion.”

Yoana let out a surprised squawk at that, narrowing her eyes at Ciri. She shut her ledger and held it to her chest, biting at her lip with a furrowed expression. “It's an honor t’do it free of fee!” she insisted, clutching the book tighter to her chest.

“Y’have no notion what Geralt did for me, establishin’ me as the real armorer. They woulda never looked at me twice, considerin’ what I got ‘tween my legs.  After Geralt showed that highbrow Nilfgaardian officer what my armor could do, it’s been nothin’ but brisk business with a ‘never y’mind’ to me being a woman. Sure mattered to all ‘em ‘fore, that bit about me.” Yoana spat at the ground in disgust, kicking over it with a sour expression.

“I’m still going to pay you,” Ciri countered, her shoulders slumping in exasperation. But she smiled none the less. Geralt was always leaving a breadcrumb trail of well-wishers in his wake.  His acts of kindness flew in the face of what everyone thought a proper witcher should be like: cold, uncaring, and only after a sack of gold.

“How’s this,” Yoana squared off with her, setting her arms akimbo and a stern look on her face to match her stubborn posture.  “I’ll take twenty-five percent off my usual rate for you and ask that I be your sole armorer as long as you need my services then, aye ?” The armorer’s brawny hand was stuck out for her to consider.

Ciri accepted her hand and shook it firm to seal the deal. “That’s a bargain I’d be happy to strike. Even if it does mean repeat visits to the Perch.”

Yoana tilted her head back and gave a hearty laugh, letting her hand fall back to her side. “I'm getting out of this midden if I’ve got such clients like yourself and Geralt. A noble warrior lady of Cintra and a witcher.”

“Cintra?” Ciri straightened up at that, suspicion coloring her voice. Her fingers curled in towards her palms and the leather of her gloves creaked with the motion. Few had drawn the connection. Force of habit of traveling under an assumed name for the past few years.

The ruddy-faced woman winked at her. “I know clear who you are. Not too many ashen haired maidens with a name short for Cirilla running around in the world. I grew up on Ard Skellig in Holmstein.  Everyone there knew that the Jarl of Skellige went away to the continent to make a match with the Lioness of Cintra, Queen Calanthe. Your gran, wasn’t she?”

The suspicion towards Yoana flagged. Ciri liked to think she had a better sense of reading people than she did in younger years. Yoana was the sort that she could trust. Being recognized was something that she’d damn well have to get used to in a hurry.  Ciri finally let herself acknowledge Yoana in a small voice, the memory of her grandmother bubbling up. “Yes. She was.”

Ciri tried to push back the memory. It was a stronger recollection than it had been in the kitchen. A full unraveling of the thread.  Invoking Calanthe in her mind always led to mixed impressions and half-faded memories from her childhood.  This particular one was strong—the scent of clean linen from her grandmother’s laundered gown was a phantom smell in her nose. Her skin tingled from the heavy press of her grandmother perching a golden circlet on her brow. Ciri remembered it sliding over her eyes and settling on the bridge of her nose. Her grandmother had let out a peal of laughter.

_You’ll grow into it, cub_. Warm, long fingers had caressed her cheek.

And as fast as it had come, the memory faded and Ciri was once again standing in the middle of a chicken-pecked smithy yard under a brilliant dawn sky. She shot Yoana a weak smile. “Not going to let that bit about me slip to the Sergeant, are you?”

“S’alright,” Yoana reassured her with a beam and a clap on her shoulder. “Not gonna go squawkin’ that we have a queen walking about the Perch. Hope none of the menfolk up at the manor clue in. You’ve gone this long, I suppose.”

Ciri cast a glance around the still empty smithy yard, muttering, “Most folk don’t make the connection.”

“Then most folk are right stupid,” scoffed Yoana, her eyes rolling skyward before she shot Ciri a look of mirth.  The ashen haired woman scuffed the sole of her boot against the dirt as she contemplated how to ask this next favor of the islander.

“There was another matter I was wanting to talk to you about,” she looked up and fixed the other woman with a direct gaze.

The blonde haired armorer met it with a look that was part interest and part caution. “Which was?” she asked, one sandy brow lofting high in curiosity.

“The kitchen girl, Gretka,” Ciri said, motioning towards the keep past the gatehouse.

Gretka made a ‘ah’ of recognition, nodding back at Ciri, “Aye, I know the wee imp. Fond of her.”

“Would you mind keeping an eye on her? I’ll be speaking to the cook to see if she wouldn’t mind lodging her during the night in her own home. I don’t like her staying in that kitchen during the night with those men roaming the manor.”

“Neither do I,” Yoana’s shoulders slumped and Ciri thought that the armorer looked more than a little relieved at Ciri’s request  . It seemed that Yoana was as worried about Gretka as she was. “I heard about her giving one of those whoresons a bite so hard she about took his finger off.  No guessing what he was doing in that kitchen so late…no place for a young one in there without someone to watch out for her at night.”

“Exactly my concern.” Ciri’s words held an edge of anger to them. She had to make her fingers loosen out of fists, the leather of her gloves creaking. The words of the men in the corridor last night ran through her head and a hot wave of rage bubbled up in her chest.

“Tell Cook I’ll take her if she can’t—it’ll have to be discreet. Sergeant don’t like people meddling with the affairs of how the place gets run. Don’t think he can miss Gretka as long as she’s there working when she needs to be.”

“Thank you,” Ciri said, relief evident in her voice as she reached out and shook the other woman’s hand. With Gretka looked after, she could attend to business at hand. She didn’t want to have to bundle the girl up and take her out on the open road with her with her current task ahead.  It was dangerous and she didn’t have the time to devote to minding an eight-year-old with the current agenda taking her far afield most days.

Her and Yoana exchanged goodbyes with promises to meet later in the week.  If something delayed her, she would send word with the messenger riders that made rounds through the villages.

Ciri turned to head out of the smithy yard and the straw-haired islander started yelling over her shoulder at her hut, “FERGUS! Up with yer wee arse and start stoking this fire! It’s half-past six already!”

Ciri gave a small wave to the dwarf as he stumbled from the straw-thatched hut, half-asleep and yawning as he tied up his leather apron around his waist. She left the pair to their noisy work and headed back towards the manor’s main yard.

The sun was up by now, the sky fading from purple to a Robin’s egg of a blue. It promised to be another crisp, early fall morning.  Ciri filled her lungs with the sweetness of the air and the dampness of the leaves crunching underfoot. The great oak in the center of the yard was molting red and yellow. She kept her eyes on the ground as she traced her steps back to the manor, thoughts falling on her mind in the silence.

She’d paid her dues the choices ahead of her were daunting. Slip into obscurity or throw herself under the wheels of government. The letter of acceptance waited in her saddlebags. Nothing was in stone yet. She could accept his offer or tear it up and toss it to the wind. Giving Emhyr an answer would define the trajectory of her entire life.

_I’m more frightened of giving Emhyr an answer than killing a Crone._

The realization was starting to hit harder. This would be her final hunt if obligations tied her to the throne and away from the Path.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all that leave a kindly kudo, wonderful bookmark, or most welcome comment on this work of mine. 
> 
> Follow my tumblr, [elleinmotion](https://elleinmotion.tumblr.com/), for more Witcher-centric content!


	5. A Dawn Hanging

When she arrived back in the kitchen, it was a busier scene versus how Ciri left it. Gretka was busy with arranging earthenware bowls of porridge on trays to carry out.

She nodded a greeting to Gretka and traded a few whispered words with Cook. Crowns changed hands with a sliding of coins scraping up against one another.

Cook didn’t take much convincing. She pocketed the money with nary a flinch and leaned close to hear her murmured request.

“Keep her closer by,” she motioned at Gretka, “Take her with you into your home in the evening time and return with her in the mornings for work. Don’t let her stray far. The Sergeant won’t take too much notice, I’d imagine, if she’s here when she needs to be. I’ll be back to collect her within the week.”

“Aye,” Cook whispered to her, glancing at the door to the hall. There were voices stirring outside. Ciri heard the sound of hobnail boots hitting the floorboards as the guardsmen took up their posts in the manor. “No place for her during the darker hours. I would’ve taken her in sooner…but with food being scarce enough under your own roof it's hard to take on another mouth to feed. This should cover her, though.” Cook patted the coins in her pocket.

Ciri nodded at the hook-nosed woman and turned to tap at Gretka as she passed. The small girl paused, ladle in hand as it dripped stewed oats onto the floor.

“It’s time,” Ciri said, looking down at her first friend in Velen and one of the braver children she’d met in her life. Her heart clenched at the look that broke on Gretka’s face.

“But y’only just got here!” she complained, tears welling in her eyes. Ciri crouched and gathered the girl in a fierce hug, not minding the spatter of oats that dribbled onto her pants from Gretka’s ladle. One small arm twined around Ciri’s neck and clutched tight while her face tucked into the hollow of her neck. Small sniffles followed.

Cook made a noise of a soft ‘ _awch_ ’ behind them, tutting and striding into view. She untangled Gretka from Ciri and dropped reassuring hands on the girl’s shoulders. Ciri stood.

“There, there, lovey. You’ll be fine. The lady’s about her work, aye? She’ll be back. Not goodbye for good,” Cook reassured her.

The knock of boots beating on the floorboards in the hall made the women’s heads turn towards the direction of the noise. Various doors sounded like they were being thrown open with such force that the floor beneath Ciri’s boots vibrated. She listened as the noise outside the kitchen door died down.

It sounded like the militiamen of the manor were rushing out to the yard. Ciri could hear an even louder commotion coming from there. It was a din of male voices yelling over the high-pitched racket of a shrieking horse.

“Hide,” she bit out, clearing her sword from the scabbard on her back. It came free with a well-oiled slide, glinting in the dim light of the fire as she stalked towards the door.  As soon as it shut behind her, then came the scraping of furniture moving before she heard something heavy hit the wood with a resounding thunk.

As she turned the corner, Ciri paused. She quieted the sound of her breathing as she hovered near the entryway. The door had swung shut in the breeze, hiding the yard from her gaze. No one was immediately outside of it, as far as she could tell. No shadows were cast at the thin sliver of light coming from the bottom of the door. She took the handle and pushed it open to reveal a scene of pandemonium in the yard.

Ciri could make out an outline of a person standing ramrod straight on the back of a horse. The animal stood under the sloping branch of the withered oak that dominated the center of the yard. The person's feet were planted in the seat of the horse’s saddle. Two men, dressed in the ratty gambesons of the Baron’s soldiers, were holding tight to the fidgety horse’s reins. A milling crowd of militiamen gathered around the tree.

The body standing on its back rocked and swayed with the motions of the horse. _My mare_ , Ciri realized. The animal twisted and pawed at the ground, making the rope that connected the person to the sturdy limb of the oak tree curve and tighten at intervals. Ciri could see the whites of the mare's eyes from where she paused on the stairs.

It was the stable lad from earlier in the morning standing there on the horse’s back, pale as a sheet as the noose strained around his small neck. She saw his hands bound behind him with more rope.

There was a rush of blood pounding in her ears and her heart surged with adrenaline. Her boots clacked on the wood, a sharp rapport of _rat-tat-tat_ before they hit the dirt of the yard.

She shouted over the raised voices and raucous laughs of the men gathered around the tree. Her feet pounded the ground and bodies passed by her in a blur as she wove through the throng of men, sword at the ready.

“STAY THAT HORSE!” she yelled as she drew up short of her mare, brandishing her blade. No helping startling the animal more. Her mare looked ready to bolt as it was and only the ring of men blocking the way kept her from doing so. 

_If she bolts_...

Ciri would have to slip the space around her and cut the rope if the horse ran out from under the boy. There was no other way around it. 

The tug of her magic was so strong her skin itched with it. Instinct and years of fighting by slipping from one space to another warred with her self-imposed rule to not use it so close to Crookback Bog. Weavess might sense the sudden flash of her magic and flee. Velen was still the Crone’s domain for now. Ciri stifled the urge.

The two men holding onto the horse’s reins stared gormless at her.

Another militiaman near the animal’s hindquarters ignored her command. His gloved hand caught her eye as he raised it to give the horse’s rump a smack.

Ciri darted across the stretch of ground that separated them. Her blade caught the light of the sun on its edge as it came down. He drew back a gushing stump and the twitching hand once attached to it got stomped underfoot by the restless pacing of the frightened horse. The stable lad was doing his damndest to keep his feet planted in the saddle, swaying and stepping with each move the horse took.

She ignored the shrieking of the now one-handed man, pointing the tip of her sword at the two standing by the head of her mare. They seemed frozen in shock and the other guardsmen gathered around the tree mirrored their silence. The yard was thunderingly quiet, now. The only sounds were the snorting and pawings of the horse and distant call of morning birds.

“You’re going to keep holding that animal like your life depends on it,” she pointed her sword at one of the men clutching the reins. She recognized him as one of the drunks from last night. The other she’d relieved of his hand was another one of his drinking companions.

Ciri counted eight men total. Two were holding the horse, one was screaming about his hand, and the remaining five were at her back watching. She saw some reach for the hilts of their swords and knives.

The ashen haired woman would have appeared outnumbered.

But they weren’t learned in the swift footwork of the School of the Wolf.

Ciri let her sword arm lead her as she stepped back, spinning across the dirt before she slid the tip of her sword to the throbbing jugular of one of the men. His hand paused on the hilt of his blade and she watched his beady eyes drop to the naked length of steel tucked up against his neck.

When he gulped, her sword bobbed up and down. A pinprick of blood welled up as the skin scraped against the tip of it.

Ciri looked over her shoulder at the other man holding the horse steady. Her voice sounded calm as it rang out and broke the silence holding the men spellbound. “You’re going to cut him down,” she instructed.

A nearby mounting block was drug over so the boy could be cut down. Once his feet hit the ground, he took off like a shot for the gatehouse and didn’t look back. The noose was still hanging around his thin neck and the frayed edge of the rope snapped out like a tail behind him.

Ciri didn’t let the tip of her sword drop from the soldier’s neck. She looked around at the men gathered and asked, “Do Phillip Stenger’s men make sport of hanging children, now?”

“Make sport of hanging thieves is all,” grunted one ruddy-faced man clutching a halberd across his chest. He eyed Ciri with no small amount of bafflement and anger, his thick fingers twisting around the haft of his weapon.

“That boy’s no more a thief than you are a lord,” she hissed out, punctuating it with the slightest of jabs against her makeshift hostage’s jugular. He took in a shocked gasp of air, mouth gaping open as more blood pooled down his neck from the widening but tiny cut she had made. “Even if he was a thief, the prescribed punishment for thieving children under Temerian law doesn’t call for a hanging.”

The men around her didn’t show much reaction to their comrade’s plight. She was beginning to think there wasn’t much point to continue to hold him at sword point if they didn’t give two figs about whether their companion lived or died. Some look downright ready to walk off from the scene, edging back and looking towards the exit from the yard.

Movement caught her eye. It was coming from the top of the stairs to the manor house. Ciri’s gaze swung up to watch the limping gait of the Sergeant as he stumbled down the steps, leaning heavy on the wall with a hand to keep his balance.

“Sergeant Ardal,” she greeted him as he made his way across the yard. As he drew closer the stormy expression on his face became clearer. He shoved aside some of the men blocking his path towards Ciri, swearing loudly and profanely.

“The fuck is this racket at this hour? You lot out here rabble-rousing with the lady?” The Sergeant drew up short once he got a look at her gwyhr and how it angled into his man's neck.

Her arm was steady as she kept his guardsman under the point of her sword. “They were out here lynching a child. I interrupted,” she told him.

“Found him goblin’ up kitchen rations in the stable,” came from somewhere in the throng of men. The Sergeant’s head swung around to look at the speaker and his look was parts anger and exasperation.

Ciri wanted to scream at the stupidity of it all. Her words came through her teeth and her knuckles crackled with the clenching of her sword grip. “I gave him my rations.”

A half-beat of silence followed an awkward shuffling among the men. _Caught with their pants down, so to speak_. Ciri fixed the Sergeant with an arch look.

“You heard it, lass. Mistaken circumstances and all. Apologies,” he gritted his teeth around the very word. She could see the veins in his neck standing.  Ciri could not tell if he was more angry at her audacity or at the flagrant stupidity of his men on display for outsiders to witness.

Her sword came free from the man’s neck and he scrambled back out of sword-reach. Ciri kept it aloft and held it at guard across her front. She stepped back until the men holding her mare scattered and she caught the reins they left dangling. Her mare, to her credit, didn't bolt with them. 

She pulled the reins over the horse’s head and drew them firm to pause the restless fidgeting of the horse while she mounted. An awkward way to climb on, holding a sword for fear of one of them running up to cut at her legs, but she managed.

Ciri peered at the crowd from her new vantage and set her feet in the stirrups. She gestured at the Sergeant with the tip of her sword.

“Is this what happened with those corpses lined up on the palisades?” she asked him, deciding that the chicken was well out of the coop at this point. Only a coward wouldn’t press the issue. “Make-believe offenses or misdemeanant acts. All drummed up for the sport of slapping a horse out from under frightened men and boys? Watching them twist and dangle until they piss themselves and die hanging?”

Ciri let her words fall on their ears for a half-beat of silence before she hissed out, “Or is it the food and coin in their houses you were after ?”

The restless shifting of the men and looks traded amongst themselves spoke louder than words. Not one of them threw a denial back at her. Disgust bloomed in the pit of her stomach. The Sergeant’s expression soured even further.

That’s when she took a hard look at the man she had come to know during her short stays at Crow’s Perch.

Ciri counted the number of burst veins in his nose and found him worse for wear than when she was in Velen before the summer solstice. The drinking itself was nothing new—the Baron and every man below him always had the distinct reek of hooch about them, but when combined with the surfeit of bodies she saw hanging from the walls…

The Baron had possessed a steady hand in controlling his merry band before he left. Violence was the law of the land in Velen under his rule, but it was a controlled one.

But the Baron was gone and it appeared he had left one of the worst offenders in his militia in charge, guaranteeing Velen would enjoy many more months of raping and pillaging from Midcopse to Mulbrydale until the Baron’s return.

_If he returns_ , she thought, remembering Geralt’s words about the Baron’s wife. Or what was left of her, after the Crones had done dark work on the poor woman’s mind.

“Take them down and send them to their families for burial.” Nothing in her tone had the vaguest resemblance of being a request. These were demands flying out of her mouth. “You’ve made your point. Withhold from the Sergeant, get hung by the neck from the walls of Crow’s Perch. That’s the rule of the land and I suppose that makes you the biggest man in this pisspot of a province.

“But you’re a small man outside of these walls. So small that you might not even perceive it right now, flush as you are with food and gold. But there will be a day when you realize how deep the hole is that you've dug for yourself, and I’ll be standing in view when that dawns on you."

The Sergeant's teeth were yellow and rotten when he pulled his lips back in a grin. “You think you’ll be restoring the order around these lands by killing me and my kind, sweetling? There’s ten more of me out there waiting for a chance to sit at the top. Some that might do worse than what you’re complainin’ about. You want that for those poor peasants?” He gestured towards the walls and the town that spread down the hill from the manor, but Ciri took it to mean the lands that spread even further.

Ciri’s laugh was incredulous, raucous and loud in the yard before her face stilled into a mask full of anger. She could feel it heating her face. “I imagine they’ll be faring a lot better with your lot raping and stealing anything not bolted down to the floor. Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves and be thinking about your successor in violence. I’d rather see you outed and someone scramble to take your spot versus letting you remain as you are in the interest of keeping the _peace_.”

Her chest was heaving by the end as more and more anger worked itself into her words. She raised her gwyhr to sheathe it on her back. “If I come back and find those men still hanging, you’ll be strung up beside them, I swear it.”

She waited for him to spit out an order for his men to cut her horse out from under her for the threats, but it never came. He kept a wary, bleary-eyed stare on her. He was proving to be a more cautious man that she’d thought.

“Sergeant, she done killed Wilburn, though!” shouted one of the men, motioning to the man she’d relieved of his hand after he tried to slap the horse out from under the boy. His ghostly pallor and vacant, fixed stare on the sky spoke volumes about how Wilburn was doing.

The Sergeant only gave the man a passing glance before turning the brunt of his attention back on Ciri. “All I see is good slop for the pigs,” he spat his words at Wilburn’s cooling corpse, gnashing his teeth. “Let the bitch go on.”

Ciri dug her heels into her mare’s sides and bent over her arched neck. The anxious, pawing animal didn’t need much urging. Ciri barely kept her seat when the horse spun and bolted for the archway leading out of the manor’s yard. She flattened down and pushed all her weight into her heels.

The crowd behind her wasn’t spared a second glance as Ciri steered her mare down the hill and away from Crow’s Perch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that escalated quickly. I've updated the chapter count from 8 to 10 to account for the remainder of the story. Thank you to all giving this story a go and especially to those that leave a kudo, a comment, or a bookmark. Your feedback assures me that the story deserves to be out and the world and not just sitting on my hard drive. Much love. ♡
> 
> Follow my tumblr, [elleinmotion](https://elleinmotion.tumblr.com/), for more Witcher-centric content!


	6. Gallantry and Other Niceties

She rode on the washed out roads towards Lindenvale. Crow’s Perch was once more a smudge on the horizon and the sun was high. This day was proving to be as clear and warm as the one before it. 

Ciri sunk deeper in the saddle, rolling her shoulders back and keeping her breath even to give her mare the cue to slow. The pounding gallop wound down to a jog. She gave the horse a pat on the shoulder. The early fall chill from the morning had dissipated and Ciri threw back the hood of her caplet to let the air cool her. 

Surrounding the road on both sides were meadows dotted with bushes of red Beggertick blossoms and tall stalks of Fool’s Parsley. Further out she spotted more recognizable plants: the stark petals of White Myrtle winked at her from big shrubs. Bursts of orange and yellow that meant Moleyarrow flowers were in bloom. 

Her horse slowed to a walk. Ciri swung herself out of the saddle and looped the reins over her horse’s head to lead her off the path. She was in need of a moment to stretch her legs and slow the racing of her heart. The adrenaline was working its way out of her system from the earlier pandemonium at Crow’s Perch. A comedown like that left her with jellied limbs and a sense that she’d run three leagues at a dead sprint. 

They spent a few minutes cutting through the field gathering—her mare snatched up mouthfuls of grass while Ciri twisted off the heads of Moleyarrow and plucked fronds of Fool’s Parsley.

_Useful for decoctions and venoms_ , she thought. Geralt had always taught her to gather when possible as you never knew when you would see a particular plant next. Ciri wrapped the bundles of picked flowers and herbs with strips of rawhide, twisting open the latch on her saddlebags to store them away. 

The stable lad had done her a service by readying her horse before the idiots had gotten ahold of him. Her heart had nearly come out of her mouth when she and her mare had thundered over the rickety bridge leading out of Crow’s Perch. She’d remembered she failed to fetch her saddlebags in the commotion. 

_Far too late to go back for them now_ , she’d thought. But the bags she’d brought into the manor were rigged to the back cantle of her saddle when she turned to check.

_He must’ve gone in and fetched them for me_.

There hadn’t been any sign of the stable lad as she galloped down the single lane to leave Crow’s Perch. If he was as keen to survive as he seemed, Ciri hoped the boy had hidden himself away safe or far, far away by now.

Relief had flooded through when her eyes landed on those saddlebags. While there wasn’t anything of import in them that couldn’t be replaced, Ciri disliked the idea of her letter finding its way into hands not meant for it.

Or to labor herself with the task of re-writing it. She lined the bottom of one bag with gathered herbs and retrieved the envelope from deep within, tucking it instead in her belt pouch after folding it twice over. 

“Now to get a handful of Arenaria. Then we’ll be in business,” she said to her mare, giving her glossy neck a pat. Hanged Man’s Venom wasn’t hard to make. It was a simple concoction: a few petals from the Arenaria flower ground up into a thick paste with any tallow. The Fool’s Parsley would only fortify the venom into something she wouldn’t want to nick her skin with. It was lethal for humans, elves, and dwarves, seeping into their body to slow the rush of their blood and clot it. 

When she was certain of having a healthy stock of plants from the meadow, she remounted from the ground and let her mare lead them back to the road. She gave her horse a long rein to stretch her neck and trot on, sitting deep and hugging the barrel of the animal's chest with her lower legs so she wasn’t bouncing all over her back. 

The further north they trekked the more the land opened up. Meadows gave way to sandy riverbanks and the Pontar, or at least a branch of it, flowed westward. Further up was the outline of a bridge big enough for a wagon to cross. 

Ciri kept the river to her left side and looked south, raising her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. Smoke was rising from a small town that seemed like a wide stretch in the road. 

Lindenvale.

A great oak stood sentinel by the gate as she road into town, once more lifting the hood of her capelet to shield her face and distinctive ashen hair. Mangy old sheepdogs roamed the dirt paths between the cottages as she passed through. She dismounted to walk the rest of the way through town. Her stomach was rioting on the Ranogrin tea she had this morning—her only breakfast. She needed food if she wanted to keep in the saddle for the rest of the day. 

Her mare took a long drink at the shallow trough set up against a lean-to shelter that housed a sow and her squealing piglets. In front of the ramshackle inn with its white-daubed chinking stood a noticeboard. 

Curiosity piqued, Ciri walked over to peruse the scraps of paper tacked onto the board but found nothing of importance. Only market notices for livestock and produce stared back at her. 

“Witcher came through months past and cleared out most of the work for a sword like yours. Sorry, lass,” shouted a passing villager carrying an armful of laundry. Ciri gave her a nod of thanks. 

_Another village free of problems thanks to Geralt_ , Ciri thought with a grin. If she had any hope of making it as a witcher, she’d do well to find lands far away from his usual routes. He was downright industrious in clearing out monsters and other sundry problems in the North.

The inn yielded breakfast—a glossy skinned plum and heel of bread. She paid in crowns and left a few extra on the countertop for the jovial lady that sold them to her.

By the time she rejoined her mare outside, she had drank her fill from the trough and ambled over to the manger. She greeted Ciri with a soft whicker around a mouthful of hay.

“Silly horse,” Ciri chided with a smile, reaching up to cradle the big, glossy head between her hands. Her mount chewed on with a single-minded purpose of getting her breakfast squared away, bit and all. 

The mare was growing on her after only a day. She contemplated riding to White Orchard on the mare instead of selling her back to the horse dealer in Blackbough. Of course, that was after dealing with Weavess and the matter of the letter. 

She remounted and felt refreshed after wolfing down her plum save the pit. Ciri steered her mare towards the southern road leading out of Lindenvale.  There was a brief pause outside the fence as she looked around, hairs rising on the back of her neck. Unease settled into her gut. She searched for any sign of crows, but none soared overhead or lurked on a nearby post. 

The rutted path followed the rise of a small hill into the woods.

Older woods, these. Bigger trees, bigger shadows.

The way in front of her went on and on before it grew darker and more shaded, disappearing beneath the heavy boughs of the ancient oaks that flanked the road.

She had examined Geralt’s meticulously drawn map of Velen before leaving White Orchard the day before. The road that lead west to east above Lindenvale turned south to the Nilfgaardian center camp, but it ran near marked bandit hideouts and necrophage dens. It would take twice as long to wade through those. The plus was that the route did steer clear from Crookback Bog. 

Which left her with the quicker alternative: cutting through the old forest and finding a reliable game trail with decent footing once they drew near Downwarren. 

She wouldn’t pass through the town if her life depended on it. Even the Sergeant had made it clear that the townsfolk of Downwarren kept the Crones as their chosen deities. Those creatures had made themselves much more immediate to the people of these lands…and necessary. 

_Faster results than praying to Melitele, I’d imagine. Ease of access and all_ , she thought with disgust.

So she would cut around the town, heading higher into the hills before descending to the paths that lead to the main stretch of road near the Nilfgaardian encampment.

“Let’s put some distance on you, shall we?” she asked her black mare. The horse coiled up like a spring beneath her when Ciri shifted one heel and put more of her leg on her flank. 

The animal surged into motion and within a few strides was cantering down the path, taking both of them towards the deep woods that bordered the place where Ciri had first discovered the horrors of Velen.

Crookback Bog. 

* * *

“Imagine it. Hot water,” she told her mare. The horse was busy picking her way down the slope towards the road. “A copper tub. Me in it for the rest of the evening.” 

They had spent the better part of the morning and afternoon navigating the shrubby, pine-strewn hills above Downwarren. The branches on the trees had been so low at times that Ciri had to dismount and lead the both of them single file along the narrow game trail. 

Familiar landmarks kept her on course. The ancient, gnarled tree atop Bald Mountain had reared into view once they trekked further into the hills. She kept it on her right side. After a few leagues, the windmill at Benek had appeared ahead as they made their way east on the trail. That had been Ciri’s cue to steer her mare down from the hills and find the path in the low lands once more. 

“And plenty of oats for you,” she promised with a pat to her mare’s neck. The horse flicked an ear back. “You’ve earned your keep twice over.”

It was an easy pace to set now that they were on a proper road once more. Ciri let her legs stretch and heels sink low, rising up out of the saddle in a half-seat. She moved in sync with the easy, smooth canter the mare sped into. The wind teased at strands of hair that had escaped the tight chignon she had styled this morning.

The pine trees began to thin out. Dense scrub lessened until she could see clear through the forest as it sloped up out of the boggy lowlands. Sunlight beat down on her back, reassurance that west was behind her and east lay ahead. Ciri mentally retraced Geralt’s map in her mind.

Kimbolt Way. The main road to the Nilfgaardian center camp. It would be at the top of this hill if her bearings were true. Ciri clicked her tongue to urge her mare into a gallop.

Something whistled through the air and Ciri’s hearing registered a fleshy thud. The mare shrieked and lurched, falling out from under her and she launched over the horse's shoulder. Before she hit the dirt she rolled tight into a ball, willing her body to relax. A lancing pain shot into the shoulder and knee that met the ground and she heard, _felt_ something pop. 

There wasn’t time to gasp or take stock of herself as she laid there in the dirt. Ciri scrambled to tear her sword out of its scabbard. She raised it instinctively when she felt the air above her move. Her blade caught the downward swing of a halberd’s edge as she got onto her knees. The pain in her ruined arm barely registered as her other hand freed the dagger from her belt. 

It came up between the man’s legs and stuck into the flesh of his groin. Ciri pulled it forward when she felt the blade hit bone. Hot arterial blood gushed down her hand and made the dagger grip slick. The halberd bearing down on her veered off as the man wielding it collapsed.

Ciri staggered up with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. 

A pair had emerged from hiding places in the bushes. Their third companion died at her feet. Filthy bandits, dressed in tatters and mismatched armor. 

_Two to kill_ , she counted.

Her dagger flew from her grip as she leveled it at the man rushing her with a rusted sword. The steel buried itself in his cheek, missing his eye by inches. The tip of the dagger protruded from the back of his skull. He dropped. 

_One to kill._

The archer. He was already sprinting up the road and away from the scene. If she used her magic, she could come down on top of him and split his skull open like an overripe melon. But she was only a few leagues away from Crookback Bog and her magic needed to remain undetected.

So she ran him down. His panicked expression as he looked over his shoulder to see her closing the distance between them gave her more pleasure than she would ever admit. 

“I surren—” was all he screamed out before Ciri spun into a neat pirouette. Her sword cleaved through the meat of his neck and his head went tumbling into a ditch. More blood sprayed her. The rest of him stood still for half a second before it crumpled.

She limped back the short distance to where the men had downed her. The one with her dagger buried in his face was still alive and writhing about in the dark, bloody dirt. She leaned down, pulled the dagger from his head, and slit his throat. His thrashing stopped and the light died in his eyes as she watched.

The screams of her mare tore at her. Ciri staggered over and collapsed besides the animal.

Ciri recognized them as the haunting, piercing shrieks that a horse made when its lifeblood was pumping out. Ciri pressed her hands into the creature’s neck and fought back tears, trying to soothe her with hushing noises. 

It was a feeble attempt at comforting something in such great agony. The dirt around them became black with the mare’s blood as it pumped out of her hole in her chest the arrow made. 

The bastards had only just punctured her heart. Soon the horse’s legs stopped their wild thrashing and the shrieks quieted. Her barrel of a chest gave one last tremendous heave of breath and then all was still.

Blood pounded in Ciri’s ears. The sounds of the forest leaked back in as the ringing sound of her battle lust dispersed. Her limbs shook and the pain in her left side became a throbbing, constant reminder of the fall she had taken. 

Tears made runnels in the blood drying on her face. Sadness crept into her. A beautiful creature wasted because she had wanted to make good time. She should’ve kept to the game trails and off the road. 

Ciri bent over the mare’s black, glossy neck and closed the lids over her unseeing eyes. It felt like Kelpie was dead under her hands rather than a horse she had only known for a few days. A good horse, though. An honest one.

The Nilfgaardians found her like that not long afterwards. 

She had begun to strip the tack from the mare’s cooling body when she heard the sound of pounding hooves and clanking armor. Mounted calvary. At least a patrol in size, ten or twelve riders. They crested the hill and Ciri saw their flags held high—a golden sun emblazoned on a black field.

Instinct made her reach for her sword once more. It waited on the grass for a cleaning. Bandit blood was still caked on the steel. She had a bad rapport with Nilfgaardian patrols. She remembered routing them with the Rats and killing quite a few officers who thought their black armor guarded well against her sword.

The patrol drew closer. The riders at the front sighted her first. Swift orders shouted in Nilfgaardian sounded for the patrol to halt. They stopped on the road where the headless bandit’s body was beginning to gather flies.

She could see eyes staring at her from between their visors. They wore winged helms and she noticed skulls decorating a banner that accompanied the standard of the Great Sun. At the head of the formation rode a man, the only one not in full battledress. 

His face didn’t register at first. He was the one who broke away from the patrol and galloped towards her. His steed was a thickly built destrier barded in dark leather tack.

When the officer—marked so by his white ruff and the breastplate fasted over his doublet—finally drew closer, Ciri recognized him. She lowered her sword. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said to General Voorhis. Her voice, at least, didn’t quaver. Exhaustion was stealing its way into her body. She knelt on the grass by her saddlebags before her knees could buckle, laying her bloody sword across a knee. 

She hadn’t seen him since Geralt had brought her to Vizima. 

Even then it was a brief exchange where she had been less than courteous. Steam had been almost spouting out of her ears when she stormed out of her meeting with Emhyr and found the general conversing with Geralt. 

They’d not been formally introduced, but her father by choice had spoken of him after they left the throne room.

He knew the general as courteous. Favored by the emperor. A bit pompous in word. General Voorhis was the first to interrogate him on the happenings of events past when Yennefer had brought him to Vizima. The general had remained helpful to him during a few instances where Geralt needed it.

All in all, not the worst Nilfgaardian the witcher had met.

General Voorhis was not expecting to find her, especially like this, if his shocked expression was anything to go by. He dismounted and closed the distance between them, dropping to crouch beside her as she wavered on one knee. 

His wore plated gauntlets. They felt heavy and warm when he caught her by the shoulders. The throbbing in her left knee and shoulder had kindled into a steady burn. His grip eased when she flinched at the touch. “Are you injured?” he asked her, his voice strained and faintly accented like she remembered.

She shook her head at him, stubborn to admitting anything more than a mild inconvenience. “Something popped out of place. I’ll manage,” Ciri gritted out. 

General Voorhis nodded, pursing his lips into a thin line. He helped stand her up and moved his hands down to her elbows when she stumbled. Ciri sheathed her sword and resolved to clean it along with her dagger when she had time to sit down.

She knew Geralt would frown at her if she left her blades in their current state for much longer.

The rest of the general’s escort had edged closer. Some soldiers dismounted and began examining the carnage strewn all over the road. 

“ _Luned aep ker'zaer_ ,” she heard one of the men hiss at his fellows. Some gasped. 

The blood from the men she had killed dried on her skin and made her shirt stick to her her. She looked soaked in it when she glanced down her front. No wonder he thought she was worse off than she was.

“You need a doctor. To set it properly, yes?” He looked down at her and kept his hands on her arms to keep her steady. His pale blue eyes scanned her face for assent. She didn’t argue with that. 

“A doctor sounds lovely,” she agreed, her voice thin and high with pain. Something told her that it was far more complex than a dislocation in her shoulder. She cursed herself mentally. 

She couldn’t fight the last Crone with half of her body limping along. Weavess would take note of her presence soon, but Ciri couldn’t very well go charging into Crookback Bog like she’d planned to do on the morrow after some reconnaissance. 

She needed rest and someone to set this damn shoulder. After that she could reassess her battle plan.

_Planning is half of it, cub._ Ciri almost smiled at her grandmother’s remembered wisdom. 

The general gave swift orders in his native tongue to the cavalry mounted around them. They started dragging the bandit corpses into a pile. Someone kicked the head out of the ditch and it landed by the growing pile of bodies. 

One soldier knelt to finish unbuckling the bridle from her mare’s face. General Voorhis himself bent down to scoop up her saddlebags and put them over his shoulder. 

“I need to bury her,” Ciri said, staring down at her mare’s body. 

The thought of carrion birds or wolves gnawing at her mare’s carcass—worse still someone coming along to butcher her for meat—made her stomach turn.

The general rested a reassuring hand on her good shoulder, looking down at the black horse dead in the road. “I will send a detail to bury her. And burn these men,” he turned a cold, disdainful look on the remains of the bandits. 

Ciri felt a surge of gratitude towards the man. She couldn’t speak past the knot in her throat, so she only nodded her thanks and looked away. He handed her bags to a soldier so they could be rigged behind the saddle of a calvary rider.

It was his destrier he brought forward for her to mount. He held the horse patiently as she slotted her right foot in a stirrup with her right hand grasping the pommel. She tried to bounce herself off the ground and almost yelped in pain when she shifted her left side too much in the effort to mount. Ciri bit back the sound. There was no help for it. She had to get in the saddle unless she wanted to limp all the way to the encampment. 

The young general braced his hand on the underside of her thigh on her second try, boosting her up with a gentle push. Ciri got her bad leg over and almost collapsed onto the neck of his destrier, panting from the lancing pain that radiated from her knee to her shoulder.

General Voorhis didn’t need help in mounting from the ground, which was impressive in and of itself when she was occupying his seat. His warhorse stood as still and quiet as a pond as he set one foot in the stirrup and grasped the cantle of the saddle behind her. 

He hauled himself up and flung one leg over the side of his horse, balancing behind her on the back of the animal. He bracketed his arms around Ciri to take up the reins in front of them, letting her feet rest in the stirrups for balance while he kept his heels on the horse’s flanks to steer. He nudged it into motion—a sedate walk. The patrol joined them to escort, riders stacking at their back and both sides as the small formation turned southward.

The sun was starting to set on Velen once more. It painted the skies in pinks and reds as it descended in the west, warming one side of her face. 

Ciri leaned back into the general. His breastplate was hard and unyielding, but it was a solid thing to rest against. She felt his arms tighten around her and his chin graze the top of her head as they moved along road. She was too tired to keep upright and thus far the general was making a more favorable impression on her this second time than he did during their first meeting.

She let out a wracking, heavy sigh as her strength ebbed. Tiredness and pain was all that was in her, now.

“Something the matter, my lady?” he asked in her ear. He spoke low enough that the men around them would have to strain to hear it. 

She shook her head and replied back lowly, “I'm glad to be coming to the end of a very long, very terrible day.”

He said nothing in reply, but his arms around her tightened ever so slightly. It was a hold that assured her he would keep her steady and upright until they reached the encampment. 

“…thank you,” she said after a pause. She meant it.

“At your service, my lady,” he replied in that mild, pleasant voice. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Nilfgaardian speech translates to:
> 
> "The emperor's daughter/daughter of the emperor"
> 
> A warm and profuse thank you to all the readers, commenters, and kudo'ers. Is this a rare pair? Probably. Do I enjoy ever second of writing them? Absolutely. More Morvran/Ciri to come in this upcoming chapter...
> 
> Follow my tumblr, [elleinmotion](https://elleinmotion.tumblr.com/), for more Witcher-centric content!


	7. Convalescence and Conversations

Ciri nodded off in the interim.  Her body crashed hard after the adrenaline faded, exhaustion from two consecutive days in the saddle at a hard pace and the pain from her injuries were trouncing on her need to keep alert.

But years of poor relations with the empire at large made Ciri wary of letting her guard down even  slightly  around the mounted patrol that escorted her.  General Voorhis and his cortege of Nausicaa cavalry riders seemed more than willing to aid her, though, so she set aside the mistrust for now. 

The gait of the general’s horse lulled her like a rocking chair.  His arms remained on both sides of her to keep her upright in the saddle, so Ciri allowed her chin to drop to her chest and her body to slump back into him.  Her left knee was beginning to throb less, but her shoulder on that side still felt like a smith’s hammer was pounding at the joint.

Noises filtered in spite of her dozing—many voices. She heard the long, drawling syllables of Nilfgaardian. Light flickered past her eyelids. She only came to herself when the general took her good arm and gave it a gentle shake.

“My lady,” General Voorhis murmured. Ciri grunted in reply and tried to sit up proper, grasping the destrier’s mane for balance. A throbbing pain from her entire left side accompanied the movement. The oilcloth of her capelet brushed her cheek.

He’d tucked up the cover of her hood, affording her some privacy as they rode towards camp. Ciri reached up to touch the edge of the oilcloth, tugging one side to shade her scarred cheek. Ahead was a sloping hill that might’ve once been strewn with trees mere months ago like the others surrounding it.

But now that hill was stripped of vegetation and terraced with tents.  The many structures sat in lines with the precession and neatness that was as Nilfgaardian as the black and gold standard that flew high above many of their canvassed tops.

Even with the daylight waning, the camp was a hive of activity.  Torches lit the rutted wain path that lead across the flattened dirt tracts outside the palisades.  A few peddlers were out trading near their tents pitched by the camp gates and carts rolled past laden with supplies.

Some aimed curious looks in their direction, but the patrol went by unchallenged past the various guard posts that lead to the palisade gates.  One of the riders alongside them saluted the guards at the gatepost and with a few words traded in their native tongue, the tall wooden gate eased open to let their columns pass.

Ciri kept her head down and her gloved hands affixed to the pommel of the saddle as they rode through.  Her eyes skated over on the gauntlets affixed to the arms that were around her—the general continued to steer the destrier with subtle twitches of the reins.

Their route from the gate lead them past rows of orderly tents. Some open spaces broke up the order of the camp, mess tents thronged with men at their evening meal. They rode past other mounted patrols and soldiers on foot, each taking care to salute them.

_Salute General Voorhis, rather._

Finally, they reached the end of the switchback roads that lead them uphill through the encampment and Ciri was ready to fall out of the saddle and kiss the very ground.  Her shoulder was becoming more than a nuisance with the pain lancing through it with each unexpected jostle of the arm.

Her shirt felt soaked through with sweat and for that she pitted the general—she couldn’t have smelled so pleasant to ride with, stinking of the road and stale sweat.

Around them was a flat, cleared space and dominating it was a massive marquee done in the checkered yellow and black of the empire. Ciri looked around, noticing their view from the terraced spot at the top of this hill. The marquee sat high and away from the rows of lower tents. Torches were being lit on the many paths and roads between the tents as the red evening sky faded purple.

A soldier standing sentinel at the entrance to the marquee quit his post to attend them, holding the reins of the general’s destrier.

General Voorhis dismissed their escort with an order called in Nilfgaardian.  The double columns of the cavalry riders were turning from the marquee where the general had halted to descend the hill towards the main encampment.

The general dismounted first, swinging himself off the horse’s back and onto the packed ground. “Can you make it off?” he asked, his gaze intent on her face. She registered concern in his blue eyes, tension in his shoulders as he poised to help her off.

A little bit of pride stabbed at her and she kicked out of the stirrups. She didn’t need him to pull her off a horse like a child, did she?

She nodded her head in affirmation, gritting her teeth.  Ciri made an awkward movement to swing her leg over the horse’s rump to dismount, but the moment she shifted, white-hot pain lanced up her left side.  Her vision blurred and she slumped, teetering over the side of the horse before strong hands caught her around the waist. He pulled her clean out of the saddle and into his arms.

Sweat beaded down her face and heat was running through her like a fire. The pain was miserable and it was all she could do to not cry out.

Ciri could tell he was trying not to move her arm more than necessary by the way he handled her like a thing of glass, but there was no help for it. Any movement from her left was agony and she finally cried out with it.  He hurried them into the marquee as the soldier lead the destrier away, carrying her across his arms like a bride and lowering her onto a wooden table.

She felt close to fainting, then. The pain swamped her vision and radiated like a sun from her shoulder.

A new face swam into her view and her brain worked to catch up with the Nilfgaardian traded between the general and another man that had been waiting in the tent. One was asking, the other explaining— _she’s injured, her shoulder_. That was General Voorhis.

The spectacled man and his rough hands smell stringent and of herbs as they gathered lank strands of her hair out of her face. He prodded open a lowered eyelid to peer down in the pupil. His keen gaze roved over Ciri’s face. He queried something in Nilfgaardian, which she didn’t quite catch.

The general snapped back in Common Speech. “Stop gawking and help her, Emlyn.” That was the closest she’d heard the general to come to sounding irritated and Ciri wanted to giggle. The young man she regarded as  annoyingly  polite from the first time they’d met, irate?

A wheeze left her mouth in place of a laugh. The man—a doctor? He lifted a flask to her lips and bid her drink. She felt a warm, large hand cup the back of her head and knew General Voorhis was lifting her head  carefully.  Ciri smelled the decoction of strong alcohol and she drank of it, not caring about the burn coursing down her throat to her gullet. It was dulling and what she needed.

It felt like she downed half the flask before the spectacled man pulled it away. Her gut burned with the alcohol that sat on it, radiating outward to her limbs.

“Hold her still,” came the accented voice of the doctor. She had no time to think before the general pinned her good arm. Opposite him, the medic slotted his hands against her ruined shoulder and elbow. A loud crack sounded as her joint slid back into its socket as he gave the limb one practiced twist.

Ciri fell into blackness.

* * *

It was dark by the time she awoke.  She cracked an eye open to observe what was around her, wary despite feeling sapped of every ounce of energy—a candle guttered near the cot she was laying on, a mere stub of wax melting into the table.

The floor was hewn wooden planks instead of dirt, but the walls and ceiling overhead were canvas.

_Still in the tent, it seems_. She shut her eyes and let out an exhale, tension draining from her limbs.

There was a distant sound of scratching nearby. Ciri lifted her head, trembling with the effort of holding it even a few inches off the pillow.

Seated in profile not far away at a small writing desk was the general.  He was out of his breastplate and white ruff, busy at his missives. His aquiline nose almost touched the parchment as he wrote out something with a quill. He cradled his head in one hand in what appeared a gesture of deep thought.

An open campaign chest sat at the foot of the cot and it was then that Ciri realized she must’ve been occupying _his_ cot.

The tent was large, partitioned off with painted canvas to create the semblance of rooms. 

She let her head fall back on the pillow, tension draining out of her limbs.

Here was safe, for now.  They had done nothing but render aid to her— _he_ had done nothing but acquit himself with gallantry that would make a Toussaint knight pea green with envy.

_Speaking of green._

Her stomach lurched and Ciri tensed, willing herself to not be sick all over herself and the general’s loaned cot.

Nausea roiled in her stomach, but the longer she kept her eyes shut and laid still, it lessened. She took stock of her body then. She had warm blankets covering her up to her chin and she no longer felt clammy in a sweat-soaked shirt and breeches.  Instead she was in clean, dry clothes and her toes wriggled free of her stockings and boots when she stretched her legs.

Ciri worked herself up to a sitting position using the good arm after a while. Her shoulder throbbed and her knee was sore, but it was nothing compared to the agony from earlier. The covers fell away and revealed her in a fine lawn shirt that smelled of fresh cloves.

Through the open neck of the garment, she could see her shoulder was bound in clean linen wrappings that were damp with a poultice.  She could smell the sharpness of ginger root and crushed celandine emanating from the cloth.  It reminded her of Kaer Morhen and the concoctions Geralt used to bind to her worst bruises after running the Gauntlet.

Ciri wet her dry lips, clearing her throat to catch the general's attention. “Anything to drink nearby?” she rasped, twisting the bedcovers in her hands.

Her voice seemed to startle him—his quill froze against the paper and he gave a sudden jolt, curled back stiffening as his hand fell away from his head. He shot her a bewildered look that was replaced with a genuine smile.

“Awake, I see,” he said, “Emlyn said you might come around before the morning.” He set aside his quill and moved from the chair to a sideboard.  Still dressed in his dark doublet and breeches, he moved around the space with a clatter of his boots on the wooden floor. He poured liquid from a pitcher into a tin cup, which he brought to her.

He passed the cup to her and she grasped it one-handed with great effort, raising it to her lips. The contents smelled and looked clean.

She looked  dubiously  at the water then back up at him. “From the river?”

General Voorhis shook his head.

“Well water, and boiled at that,” he reassured her. Ciri’s doubts about drinking it quelled and she took long sips. The water was cool and wet her lips like a salve. She drank it all and asked for more, which he refilled.

The second cup went down slower. General Voorhis hovered nearby, watching her until she looked at him over the rim of her cup. He looked away, turning back to his writing desk and busying himself with shuffling papers. He began locking them away in various drawers.

“How long was I out for?” she asked, setting the cup aside.

He looked over at her, closing the lid on his desk and locking it with a key. “Only a few hours. It’s almost midnight.”

“And my things?” She looked around at the parts of the large tent she could see.

General Voorhis gestured to a far corner. A stand held his broadsword and right by it stood her gwyhyr and dagger.  They gleamed silver from a fresh cleaning and no longer appeared crusted with bandit blood. “Right over there.”

Her saddlebags sat on the back of a chair near the stand, accompanied by her boots and belts and all other leather and metal articles she carried on her.

“…did you clean my blades?” she asked, amusement coloring her tired voice.

The general looked in the direction of the swords and inclined his head to her. “You were otherwise occupied and I thought to make myself…” he seemed to search for the right words, “useful to you.”

Ciri cracked a smile, rubbing at her bandages through the open neck of the borrowed shirt. “My thanks, general.”

The man relaxed and his smile returned.  Ciri  was struck by  how boyishly charming it made him look, as if his whole face lit up with the pleasure of hearing those words from her.

“I imagine we’ve got some things to discuss,” she ventured after a stretch of silence between them, punctuated only by the sound of crickets and the stirrings of the camp around them during the late hour.

The general's smile faded and he looked at his closed desk like it held something within it. _Intelligence, no doubt._ Her father had most likely mandated immediate reports if she should ever turn up.

Ciri wasn’t a fool—General Voorhis was a man dedicated to the service of the empire. An empire that she didn’t love one ounce for what it had done to her homeland and others. Of course he would be reporting back to Emhyr of her reappearance and she could’ve expected no less.

That was the entire purpose of showing up at the camp—to give her father an answer to a rather heavy-handed question and a clear sign that she yet lived on, whatever Emhyr would make of that.

“More than ‘some things’, my lady.  You’ve remained unaccounted for and considered dead by most after what happened on Undvik,” the General told her, bracing his hands on the back of his desk chair. “Last seen alive at the tower.”

“Tor Gvalch'ca,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes. “It’s a long story.”

“I have all night, you know,” he responded, casting her a look of amusement.

Ciri gestured him to sit. “Then I suppose you’d better make yourself comfortable.”

He dragged the chair from the writing desk closer to the cot and took a seat, legs spread and elbows braced on his knees as he leaned in.

Ciri began at the tower, her voice halting as she gathered all the moving parts that comprised her journey. He had a curious, intent look as she recounted her journey, morphing into fascination.

When at last she arrived at the part where she returned to their world, the General straightened up and sat back in the chair with arms crossing over his chest. A thoughtful expression was on his face.

“And thus you’ve defeated the threat to many worlds, fulfilling the prophecy,” he ventured, awe in his voice.

Ciri shrugged her good shoulder. “Or abated it, at least.  I don’t think a force like that can ever  be put  out for all eternity,” she spoke of the doubt that had plagued her since coming back. “It’s not a man or a monster you can run a sword through—it’s much like a storm.”

General Voorhis braced his arms on his knees, clasping his hands together. A frown twisted his lips. “It makes men’s wars and troubles look small in comparison—a threat that could end an entire world and encase us in ice.”

“But one that we need not worry about for as long as you or I live, for that much I am certain.” Ciri reached up to touch the waxy, hard patches of frostbite that marked her face.

“The bards will be singing of you for thousands of years to come.” That broke the somberness of the moment. Ciri pulled a face at him and he laughed at her expression, eyes crinkling.

“Please, no singing,” she moaned, her head dropping back as she pleaded. “I’m swearing you and all others to secrecy. No need to go shouting this from the rooftops.”

The general spread his hands, shaking his head with a rueful smile. “Be assured that what you say, I will hold it in confidence.”

Ciri’s measured look at him must’ve  been laced  with doubt, because he tacked on, “—within limits. I am at the emperor’s command, as you’re aware.”

“As long as _you_ recount it for him and save me the breath of having to tell it again,” she sighed, shutting her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose once more.

“But what brings you to Velen?” The man was not short on questions.  This evening was turning into a gentle interrogation and she almost laughed at the irony—Geralt had said the general asked more questions than he answered when first they met.

Ciri cracked one eye open to stare at him. “Unfinished business, which is another tale in and of itself. Someone took something of mine and I intend to get it back.”

An eyebrow shot up as he frowned. “Could I ask for some elaboration on this particular tale?”

“If I decide to tell it to you,” she drawled. No doubt if she told him her plans, it might skew them.  There was danger in what she did and she had the curious feeling that the general would rather she not pitch herself headfirst into mortal peril again. “There was another reason I came here. A letter to Emhyr, which I was hoping someone could convey to him. I’ve heard he’s quit Vizima and gone back to Nilfgaard.”  She didn’t impart what else she had heard from Yennefer about the emperor’s abrupt departure from occupied Temeria.

There were rumors of political unrest in Nilfgaard, whispers of sedition and a coup.  If his reputation was to  be believed, Ciri imagined that the possible conspirators weren’t long for this world once Emhyr started attending to the problem  personally .

The general nodded. “Indeed, and the rest of us trailing behind him save for the garrisons that will become permanent. I will ensure it  is sent  along with the mages who are returning to the capital within the week.”

“Good,” she said, hating the apprehension that seized her. The time was drawing near. Once the letter was in Emhyr’s hand, she was unsure of how easy it would be for her to change her answer.

Or if her pride would even let her double back on her word.

_It seems I still haven’t made up my mind_.

She distracted herself by turning the conversation to other things, like pointing at the shirt hanging on her frame. “My thanks to whoever helped me out of my things—I imagine I was quite filthy.”

Color blushed in his face and his eyes widened a fraction.  He stiffened in his chair, sputtering, “Chief Medic Emlyn—he  is versed  in medicine and the handling of infirmaries, you see, thus I left the…” he trailed off, gesturing down his front. “He took your clothes to the laundresses for cleaning.”

“Very considerate of him, but I don’t think this is Chief Medic Emlyn’s shirt,” she commented and despite feeling like a woman wrung out through a laundry press, a frisson of amusement was bubbling up at the general’s expense.

“It is one of mine, my lady,” he straightened up, chin raising a few degrees. “I wanted to afford you some measure of modesty.”

Ciri hummed, plucking at the large sleeve that hung loose at her wrist. He was broad and tall of frame enough that the shirt bunched around the middle of her thighs beneath the blankets. “Plenty modesty this affords—it nearly swallows me.”

His eyes darted from her face to the open neck of her shirt where the expanse of her collarbone was visible. She watched his throat bob and his eyes skim back up to her face again. It made her feel a bit of feminine power over the man.

She made him nervous and the thought almost made her grin.

Ciri decided that she’d teased him enough for now. She  was tired  and they were long into the early hours of the morning. They both needed the rest.

“Then I wish you a good night, general,” she said to give him an out. “And thank you for everything that you’ve done for me.”

“And to you, my lady,” he rushed out in reply, standing to sketch a bow to her and move the chair back to his writing desk.

He gave her privacy, snuffing out the candle on the table and treading on the wooden boards towards the front of the tent. She laid back and heard the sound of him shucking his boots. Then came the squeak of a cot’s frame as the general sat down on it.

Ciri turned over on her good side, cradling the pillow to her face. It smelled clean and of him—peppery cloves and the slight floral bite of rosewood.  Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she fixed a look on the canvas dividing her from the space that the general now occupied, listening to his breathing even out and deepen as sleep took hold of him.

She moved her bad shoulder in its bindings to test it. She winced at the resulting twinge that ran straight from the joint.

_Torn muscle? Ligament?_

She let out a soft huff. It still wasn’t enough for her to quit her plan. Her bad shoulder wasn’t on her dominant side and she would have her gift to aid her once she had Weavess cornered. She would force her hand to fight and not flee.

Ciri could gauge her range of motion tomorrow and decide how to handle the approach from there.  Steps were still necessary to ensure she still had the element of surprise on her side, and if there was one thing that her training at Kaer Morhen had drummed into her: _planning, planning, planning_.

She would keep this personal quest to herself for now. The general need not know the whole purpose behind her journey to Velen. If he knew, he might protest. Better to tell him after she dealt with Weavess and Vesemir's medallion was back in her possession.

Not even General Voorhis or the entirety of the Nilfgaardian army could stop her from killing the last Crone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm reminded of a line from the game while writing this:
> 
> "Simpletons adore such stories - as they do the princesses, ever beautiful and delicate - who are their--" Morvran Voorhis to Geralt, before Ciri storms into the throne room to render him speechless.
> 
> Apologies for the long wait - life tends to steal in and rob the creative energy from all of us. Hoping I can continue to write for those that are enjoying this story - thank you for all your comments, kudos, and bookmarks! They mean the world to me.
> 
> My tumblr, [elleinmotion](https://elleinmotion.tumblr.com/)!


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